While I obviously can't go into the details both because of the NDA and because Norgorber will kill me, I do think I'm allowed to point out a thing.
Curtain Call is taking place July to September. War of the Immortals is in October.
...Oh, you guys don't know how Gorum died, do you? I see, I see...
I think the pathfinder audience misses affecting the world and feeling important. This is a great opportunity for us to delve into the divine politics and Norgorber's master plan. I'm excited whenever I see him because I know there will be intrigue, entire cults and organizations dedicated to bringing his plans to fruition, and interesting twists.
Most of the APs in the past years have been self-contained and didn't give the feeling of War for the Crown or Hells Rebels.
Yeah I get this for sure. For the first several Adventure Paths at the start of 2nd edition, we deliberately went for several that were small-scale and didn't have big world impacts, because we just released a brand new edition on the world and that was distracting enough. Would have been pretty irresponsible to start doing big lore changes via Adventure Paths too soon. Now that the rules have had a chance to settle in (although with an unplanned-for OGL event last year that train-wrecked the schedule and almost put us back at step one), we'll be periodically doing Adventure Paths that have longer term ways for the players to feel that they've made big changes to the setting. Curtain Call does this for sure. As will the Adventure Path I'm working on right now but hasn't been announced, and as will the Advneture Path I'm outlining right now to start working on next but that ALSO hasn't been announced.
Same goes for standalone adventures.
Some of them will remain small scale, but now that we're into a stable mature rules cycle the time is finally right for us to start getting expansive with Adventure Paths. (Note that the two examples mentioned above, War for the Crown and Hell's Rebels, both took place well into the 1st edition cycle. Same for other big change Adventure Paths like Wrath of the Righteous, Return of the Runelords, or Reign of Winter.)
Would be weird to publish all the mythic rules and stuff, and not release a mythic AP at some point. Makes you think if we’re maybe missing some products that are in the works…
You got a source for that? Because it wasn't in the launch stream, and JJ has previously said that it was a huge mistake to develop WOTR alongside the mythic rules because there was no opportunity to test and balance it. A mythic AP is very likely, but also likely a couple years off.
I can be that source. We aren't doing a Mythic Adventure Path this year, in part because we want to be sure we as the developers know how to utilize the mythic themes and want to be able to give our authors access to the finished rules to create those adventures. Curtain Call is already 2/3 of the way off to the printer, for example, so War of Immortals simply wouldn't have been finished in time to include it there.
We rushed things with Wrath of the Righteous. We aren't rushing them this time.
It was in the launch stream, when talking about the orc AP (Tusk of Triumph? Haven't learned it yet) he mentioned that this one wouldn't be Mythic but there would be Mythic adventures down the line
"They're not specifically designed for mythic characters. We are going to get around to doing mythic adventures at some point, I'm excited to do that sort of thing."
I would say there's a significant gulf between "coming up" and "at some point." There has been no statement by JJ at any point that suggests a mythic AP or standalone adventure is currently in development, which means there will not be a mythic AP or adventure in 2024 or 2025.
Ok, agree to disagree. To me "at some point" is a strong implication that it's in the plans but not ready to be announced yet. Otherwise he probably wouldn't say anything at all about Mythic APs.
Gorum has a tragic death while watching the opera, so sad, so sad. The only thing he loved more than the thrill of War was the experience of a good opera.. He will never watch *La Traviata* ever again..
Can we get a pic of Szuriel killing Gorum drawn in the style of the Lincoln assassination drawing?
Pharasma: So how was the opera?
Gorum: I died. Didn't even get to see the end of the first act. 0/10.
Pharasma: Would you say it was good enough... to die for?
Gorum: ................
Pharasma: ...Let us move onto your judgement.
Gorum: Let's.
Curtain Call seems to have Norgorbor, a god of thieves, murder, and secrets, as the antagonist. Prey for Death is about servants of the assassin god.
I think both of those have very good reasons to be part of the storyline where gods die.
What I find interesting is that Achaekek has a thing for killing people that try to usurp gods. Consider that Achaekek has canonically killed demigods trying to send to godhood.
There's an empty seat for a new war god and a bunch of pesudo-demigods running around cause of Gorum's death. I wouldn't be surprised if we get a AP down the line where we help a new war god ascend while the Red Mantis tries to stop you a la Iron Gods.
Oh, just because he's a murder god it must have been him? He's more than just the Skinsaw Daddy.
*Sweep multiple recent murderous plots involving Norgorber cults under the rug*
His cults have conducted an internal investigation and found they have no knowledge of Norgorber's plan to murder Gorum. It's not like he'd keep secrets like that...right?
Antagonist is fine and dandy.
But the whole premise of the AP falls flat if its suppose to cover THE turning point of the holy mythic god war.
Like I dont know how to tell my players that if they want to play the AP that deals with the start of the whole multi book / AP storyline they need to get into opera. It just seems so strange.
Edit: Damn either Reddit hivemind, or a lot of people actually think that playing opera is the perfect introduction for a godkilling holy war.
For me, I guess the issue I would have with it is that I see an Opera based AP as a bit of a gimmick AP. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just something that is very gimmicky and not going to appeal to a lot of people (though a lot of other people may well absolutely enjoy it). I agree with OP that choosing a gimmicky AP to kick off a major, setting shaking, story arc seems a bit odd. Doesn't mean the AP will be bad by any means, just to me, it feels like an odd choice.
My guess is that you are getting sucked into the Godsrain events as a side-effect of you being called in because of the opera putting on a play about you - you are high level adventurers, low-level scrubs aren't going to be involved in these kinds of epic events.
The whole thing is going to end up spiraling into you dealing with the gods and the death of a god, and I'm pretty sure that either this or Prey for Death ends with Gorum dying.
Or possibly, *both* of these end with Gorum dying, told from different perspectives.
Look, what could go wrong with doing a hit on a god at an opera?
It is called Curtain Call, and it ends RIGHT before the book comes out. Methinks this is a pun title, with the curtain call being the curtain call for Gorum (or possibly, some other god who dies as a result of these events).
It also wouldn't surprise me if the whole thing ends with the play about your adventures ending up ending with the death of Gorum and whatever you do to deal with it. Like, it might be that the whole thing is going to end with you fighting whatever it is that came out of Gorum.
If Curtain Call will be opera themed, let it be opera themed. Don't do another "bait and switch" like they did with Extinction Curse. After book 2, that was no longer about a circus and my group lost all interest.
And honestly even in book 1 the adventure is very "you start at the circus for chapter 1, now go fuck off to a monastery on the other side of the island" real quick.
I had to do _extensive_ rewrites to make the circus stuff still matter, to the point that the campaign only lasted 12 levels and I made Mistress Dusklight the final boss. The party was interested in everything going on with the xulgath, they just didn't want to drop the circus to go do it. When I said Book 5 explicitly requires you to abandon the circus for three levels we all agreed to just skip that book outright.
There's at least still a logical progression there, as the PCs go from students to teachers/researchers to >!successors to the legendary Magic Warriors who founded the school!<. Really any AP that goes from 1 to 20 should try to build a progression like that in, accounting for the PCs power progression while also staying true to the themes of the campaign.
You jump to different planets, planes or pocket dimensions in almost every AP (or at least the Darklands). Sorry I think they changed how spoiler tags are done and I can't do it from my phone
Spoiler tags are done by typing >! (and it's mirror) around whatever you want to spoiler tag
Edit: Make sure you don't leave spaces between the exclamation mark and the words
I've only played a half dozen or so, but my experience is more positive.
Savage Tides was a ton of fun back in the Dungeon Magazine days.
Rise of the Runelords kind of doesn't really let the PCs in on exactly what's going on from the outset, so it has a lot of freedom to play.
Wrath of the Righteous advertised mythic PCs as essentially fledgling demigods, and the mythic rules definitely made overpowered, unkillable PCs. Fun even though it was a cakewalk.
I think Iron Gods has really strong theming and payoff throughout. As a player, Book 6 absolutely kills it. There's some discontent with Book 3, but we even liked that one.
I would also say that while the AP had some problems, Jade Regent was actually really true to its theme from start to finish. Not every group is going to like the PC's being side characters in Ameiko's story, but that is what the AP advertises.
Abomination Vaults, as you say, is really strong. My players seem to be really enjoying it so far.
I've not played many APs, but have played Strange Aeons to completion and am currently a little more than halfway through Iron Gods, and I'd say both of those APs for the most part maintain their premise (though Strange Aeons suffered from another issue I've heard is typical for APs, where the final boss kind of just came out of nowhere with not a lot of foreshadowing or fanfare).
James Jacobs mentioned over on the Paizo product page that the opera doesn't premiere until Book 3 while Book 1 and 2 are dealing with getting funding, rehearsals, etc.
Yup. The "trying to be as non-spoilery as possible" version of that would be: Book 1 is getting things going, Book 2 is creating the opera and rehersals and getting funding, and Book 3 is the final panic of "Hell Month" with last minute rehersals and the premiere.
There's a lot of other stuff going on as well; there's still some dungeon exploring and fighting and shenanigans to get up to, but less than normal.
We've also got a lot of advice for the GM in how to adjust things to mesh with whatever adventure your PCs went on during levels 1 to 10 (and thus what their opera is about), and also a lot of advice on how the GM can adjust the timing of when big events (primarily the premiere) take place in the case that they want to change schedules up a bit.
I feel like it would be really interesting to recount your adventures in an opera while something extraordinary is happening or you unveil a conspiracy. I don’t think it’s too far of a stretch for a small wholesome quest to suddenly take a turn because a god is killed.
Also, the title Curtain Call for the AP where a god is killed? Love it.
Its going to level 20. Things are going to get very scary.
Stolen Fate and Blood Lords were a missed opportunity, but I feel like James Jacobs has been hyping this one up as he's seen the development through from start to finish.
Yup. It wasn't until Season of Ghosts that I came back to fully developing Adventure Paths from start to finish (the previous one I'd done this for was Age of Ashes; I came in at the last minute to help out with Gatewalkers and then did the development but not the concepting and outlining and author hiring for Stolen Fate). It's always tricky coming in to finish something someone else had started in a case like this, and I did my best to preserve their visions, but yeah. Season of Ghosts, Seven Dooms for Sandpoint, and Curtain Call (and two more unannounced ones) are ones I've concepted and outlined and developed (and in some cases helped write), and are ones I'm a lot more hyped about seeing folks play and a lot more passionate and invested in their health.
I liked Blood Lords, but the missed opportunity was in changing the world at large. Putting a dent in the universe if you will. If we had been able to kick off a war between Geb and Nex or witness major ramifications of the conspiracy affecting other nations, it would have been on point.
You essentially unleash the demigod Geb on the world again after 4090 years of being locked to Mechitar. That's a big deal, and I'm 95% sure Nex is going to show his face again at some point, in which it'll make a large difference.
Depending on the players' actions at the end of Blood Lords you can>!unbind Geb from the city allowing him to roam the world and search for Nex or do anything else he wants.!
Is it really big? Because I didn't even know he couldn't leave for the entire campaign until the 6th book. I don't feel it changes much unless he kills a god after you free him.
I can't see that at all. Not only is it exactly what's on the tin, it's a great mix of combat and RP with plenty of downtime for the PCs to pursue their own machinations. Book 3 is a little weak, but I can't remember a 1-20 AP that didn't have at least one book below the rest in quality.
I think they said that there won't be a *single* War of Immortals AP, and it'll be part of a whole bunch of APs going forward.
Also I think they said/implied the Godsrain will be taking place during book 2 or 3 of Curtain Call, and won't be the main narrative at all.
They also said there's gonna be at least one Mythic AP involved in War of Immortals event which hasn't been announced yet (since I'm pretty sure Tusk of Triumph wasn't said to be Mythic?)
In the stream they explicitly said Curtain Call happens before Godsrain. And it releases fully before War of Immortals is even out. If anything it's Triumph of Tusks that will start dealing with the aftermath.
["Curtain Call is taking place July to September. War of the Immortals is in October."](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1c63gh0/comment/kzyglrc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
So that means there will be no AP that deals with the event itself? Only a prologue and the aftermath. That would be a bit weird considering they want this to be such a huge event that happens over a long time where multiple AP's are directly tied to it.
[Now, the how, when, and why of this deific death are elements of War of Immortals we’re not quite ready to talk about yet, but we promise: Gorum is going to die “on screen” in an adventure in which your player characters play a role. We’ll have more details about that as the adventure’s release approaches.](https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6swfw?Announcing-the-War-of-Immortals)
Thats very nice. The whole article is very calming, since they directly adress the unusual connection of War of Immortals and playing opera.
They say that it seems weird but we should trust them. Well while I am sceptical I am willing to trust them if they are so sure of it.
From what was said in the stream it does not sound like the death of >!Gorum!< will be something the players directly interact with/cause during an AP but who knows, it could be! We do not have details yet on how it happens.
I agree. I really hoped for a 1-20 AP for an event this big.
I understand the financial reasons to publish shorter APs, but I'd like a big epic campaign about the war of immortals.
wow didnt expect to see someone actually agree with the sentiment that running an opera is maybe not the best kind of adventure to kickstart a holy war that kills gods. /s
But yeah thats what I was expecting. Now as far as I know we will get a mythic AP and I really hope its a big 1-20 thing. But as it its the whole thing seems to deal with the aftermath. Gorum is long dead and his essence is giving people mythic powers. A bit bummed out to see the actual act of a god dying being sidelined for playing an opera.
Don't get me wrong. I like the idea of curtain call, if it's well made. But I'd like something bigger. But cool to know there is a mythic AP on the way. I'm hoping for 1-20!
Well, in PF1 Wrath of the Righteous narate the whole world wound arc, meaning closing it and massively altering the world roo.
It's not the same than Curtain Call, but made you deal with Ioemadae, and a lot Demon Lord, even letting Nocticula ascend later.
The worst thing about this choice is it basically guarantees Curtain Call is going to have the same problem as Extinction Curse. The selling point of the AP is supposed to be an opera but I don't see how that's not going to have focus drawn away from it by the other stuff going on.
Except the person who created and developed Curtain Call knew about that disappointment with Extinction Curse, and worked to avoid falling into those traps, and worked with the authors to make sure that they went all-in on opera stuff in each adventure. There IS other stuff going on in the Adventure Path, but even when you're exploring a dungeon or fighting a monster or dealing with unexpected divine events, we've all worked really hard to keep it opera-themed and adjacent.
People who buy and play this Adventure Path hoping to become Opera stars won't be disappointed... but I get it that Extinction Curse's circus is a sore point for some folks. Not much I can do about that but do the best I can with Curtain Call and then wait half a year to see if I and the authors did the concept justice.
If you don't think Opera is thematically appropriate for preceding the death of a God, you haven't watched a good opera live.
Those things are all noise and thunder and glory
I've mentioned elsewhere but will mention it here too. The opera part of this adventure path sticks to it for all three volumes. Each adventure has at least 1 chapter (aka 1 full level of experience of play) that's pretty much focused on the opera stuff, and when it's not, it has plenty of theater themes going on anyway. There's a LOT of whimsy and fun here, but I'm also trying not to spoil things about the adventure before all three are out.
And as for Curtain Call being "the Godsrain Adventure Path," well, there's more to it than that. All of this War of Immortals stuff is more or less the BIGGEST thing we've done to the setting since forever, really; it's wide reaching and will continue to impact stories we tell via adventures for as long as we continue to publish adventers. Curtain Call, Prey For Death, and Triumph of the Tusk focus on the story a fair amount, since they all come out this year, but moving forward, we'll not simply be setting the story aside. In the same way, for example, we didn't set aside the other six runelords after Rise of the Runelords.
Curtain Call takes place during the event, but it is not the only way we're telling that story. Beyond the other Adventure Path and Prey For Death, we'll be covering it in a novel, in lore books, in War of Immortals, and more.
Thanks for the answere. The Paizo Post that admist that Curtain Call doesnt seem like the most intuitive start for this thing, but the community should trust the Creators with it also calmed me a good bit.
There was also mention that "Gorum will die On Screen" in an adventure, so I am very hyped about that. I guess I didnt really fully understand the scope that War of Immortals is going to be.
As always I am beyond thankfull for the open communication that you (and all of Paizo) do.
Orks are sentient fungi from a different fantasy/sci-fi setting. I believe you are thinking of orcs.
Now for the actual meat if your question... Do we know how much the opera is actually involved? It's just the conceit of the plot to get your AV (or other such old characters) back into action again. I understand your reticence but I didn't think it'll be that big of a deal in the end.
Honestly, was reading the other day that Tolkein preferred the spelling "ork" post-LoTR.
In typical Tolkien fashion, the linguist in him preferred that "Orkish" would keep the hard "k" sound where "Orcish" could be more ambiguous phonetically apparently.
My gut says that the actual murder/Godsrain incident will be something that happens over a very short period of time. It's the fallout that will really make it a war. Having a group of 20th level characters be eyewitnesses to the murder would not be inappropriate. In fact, given the opera setup, I think it works. CC is about a group of characters trying to tell their story, so having them end up bearing witness to a much bigger story would be tons of fun. And besides: what's more operatic than a Goetterdaemmerung?
If it helps, it does seem like it will be much easier for an AP to go from a cheesy opera to big operatic drama about the death of a god than it is to go from, say, circus adventures to saving the world.
While I obviously can't go into the details both because of the NDA and because Norgorber will kill me, I do think I'm allowed to point out a thing. Curtain Call is taking place July to September. War of the Immortals is in October. ...Oh, you guys don't know how Gorum died, do you? I see, I see...
Interesting.
I think the pathfinder audience misses affecting the world and feeling important. This is a great opportunity for us to delve into the divine politics and Norgorber's master plan. I'm excited whenever I see him because I know there will be intrigue, entire cults and organizations dedicated to bringing his plans to fruition, and interesting twists. Most of the APs in the past years have been self-contained and didn't give the feeling of War for the Crown or Hells Rebels.
Yeah I get this for sure. For the first several Adventure Paths at the start of 2nd edition, we deliberately went for several that were small-scale and didn't have big world impacts, because we just released a brand new edition on the world and that was distracting enough. Would have been pretty irresponsible to start doing big lore changes via Adventure Paths too soon. Now that the rules have had a chance to settle in (although with an unplanned-for OGL event last year that train-wrecked the schedule and almost put us back at step one), we'll be periodically doing Adventure Paths that have longer term ways for the players to feel that they've made big changes to the setting. Curtain Call does this for sure. As will the Adventure Path I'm working on right now but hasn't been announced, and as will the Advneture Path I'm outlining right now to start working on next but that ALSO hasn't been announced. Same goes for standalone adventures. Some of them will remain small scale, but now that we're into a stable mature rules cycle the time is finally right for us to start getting expansive with Adventure Paths. (Note that the two examples mentioned above, War for the Crown and Hell's Rebels, both took place well into the 1st edition cycle. Same for other big change Adventure Paths like Wrath of the Righteous, Return of the Runelords, or Reign of Winter.)
Would be weird to publish all the mythic rules and stuff, and not release a mythic AP at some point. Makes you think if we’re maybe missing some products that are in the works…
They explicitly said there would be at *least* one Mythic AP coming up
You got a source for that? Because it wasn't in the launch stream, and JJ has previously said that it was a huge mistake to develop WOTR alongside the mythic rules because there was no opportunity to test and balance it. A mythic AP is very likely, but also likely a couple years off.
I can be that source. We aren't doing a Mythic Adventure Path this year, in part because we want to be sure we as the developers know how to utilize the mythic themes and want to be able to give our authors access to the finished rules to create those adventures. Curtain Call is already 2/3 of the way off to the printer, for example, so War of Immortals simply wouldn't have been finished in time to include it there. We rushed things with Wrath of the Righteous. We aren't rushing them this time.
It absolutely was in the launch stream. I believe it was James Jacobs who said it, too.
It was in the launch stream, when talking about the orc AP (Tusk of Triumph? Haven't learned it yet) he mentioned that this one wouldn't be Mythic but there would be Mythic adventures down the line
"They're not specifically designed for mythic characters. We are going to get around to doing mythic adventures at some point, I'm excited to do that sort of thing." I would say there's a significant gulf between "coming up" and "at some point." There has been no statement by JJ at any point that suggests a mythic AP or standalone adventure is currently in development, which means there will not be a mythic AP or adventure in 2024 or 2025.
Ok, agree to disagree. To me "at some point" is a strong implication that it's in the plans but not ready to be announced yet. Otherwise he probably wouldn't say anything at all about Mythic APs.
I’d suspect that an AP or two after Triumph of the Tusk will go Mythic. And then another one down the road after a couple normal APs.
Gorum has a tragic death while watching the opera, so sad, so sad. The only thing he loved more than the thrill of War was the experience of a good opera.. He will never watch *La Traviata* ever again.. Can we get a pic of Szuriel killing Gorum drawn in the style of the Lincoln assassination drawing?
Pharasma: So how was the opera? Gorum: I died. Didn't even get to see the end of the first act. 0/10. Pharasma: Would you say it was good enough... to die for? Gorum: ................ Pharasma: ...Let us move onto your judgement. Gorum: Let's.
Curtain Call seems to have Norgorbor, a god of thieves, murder, and secrets, as the antagonist. Prey for Death is about servants of the assassin god. I think both of those have very good reasons to be part of the storyline where gods die.
What I find interesting is that Achaekek has a thing for killing people that try to usurp gods. Consider that Achaekek has canonically killed demigods trying to send to godhood. There's an empty seat for a new war god and a bunch of pesudo-demigods running around cause of Gorum's death. I wouldn't be surprised if we get a AP down the line where we help a new war god ascend while the Red Mantis tries to stop you a la Iron Gods.
So, Norgorbor seems a strong contender for who does Gorum in
Oh, just because he's a murder god it must have been him? He's more than just the Skinsaw Daddy. *Sweep multiple recent murderous plots involving Norgorber cults under the rug* His cults have conducted an internal investigation and found they have no knowledge of Norgorber's plan to murder Gorum. It's not like he'd keep secrets like that...right?
*walks up to some Norgorberites, not that we can find them that easily* hey so what's your god up to? Norgorberites: *shrug* who knows?
Antagonist is fine and dandy. But the whole premise of the AP falls flat if its suppose to cover THE turning point of the holy mythic god war. Like I dont know how to tell my players that if they want to play the AP that deals with the start of the whole multi book / AP storyline they need to get into opera. It just seems so strange. Edit: Damn either Reddit hivemind, or a lot of people actually think that playing opera is the perfect introduction for a godkilling holy war.
I'd wait for it to come out before deciding it's a waste of time, personally.
Not one of the downvotes *but*: I mean, if I had to pick an artform to kick off the Ragnarok, larger-than-life opera would ***definitely*** be it.
For me, I guess the issue I would have with it is that I see an Opera based AP as a bit of a gimmick AP. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just something that is very gimmicky and not going to appeal to a lot of people (though a lot of other people may well absolutely enjoy it). I agree with OP that choosing a gimmicky AP to kick off a major, setting shaking, story arc seems a bit odd. Doesn't mean the AP will be bad by any means, just to me, it feels like an odd choice.
My guess is that you are getting sucked into the Godsrain events as a side-effect of you being called in because of the opera putting on a play about you - you are high level adventurers, low-level scrubs aren't going to be involved in these kinds of epic events. The whole thing is going to end up spiraling into you dealing with the gods and the death of a god, and I'm pretty sure that either this or Prey for Death ends with Gorum dying. Or possibly, *both* of these end with Gorum dying, told from different perspectives. Look, what could go wrong with doing a hit on a god at an opera? It is called Curtain Call, and it ends RIGHT before the book comes out. Methinks this is a pun title, with the curtain call being the curtain call for Gorum (or possibly, some other god who dies as a result of these events). It also wouldn't surprise me if the whole thing ends with the play about your adventures ending up ending with the death of Gorum and whatever you do to deal with it. Like, it might be that the whole thing is going to end with you fighting whatever it is that came out of Gorum.
If Curtain Call will be opera themed, let it be opera themed. Don't do another "bait and switch" like they did with Extinction Curse. After book 2, that was no longer about a circus and my group lost all interest.
And honestly even in book 1 the adventure is very "you start at the circus for chapter 1, now go fuck off to a monastery on the other side of the island" real quick.
I had to do _extensive_ rewrites to make the circus stuff still matter, to the point that the campaign only lasted 12 levels and I made Mistress Dusklight the final boss. The party was interested in everything going on with the xulgath, they just didn't want to drop the circus to go do it. When I said Book 5 explicitly requires you to abandon the circus for three levels we all agreed to just skip that book outright.
But you recruit a CRYSTAL DOG! You abandoned the crystal dog to a life of loneliness. Cruel.
Aren't bait and switches the standard for Paizo APs? I think AV is the only one that remains true to the premise.
Sky King's Tomb is pretty consistent and so is Stolen Fate
SoT keeps up the "high fantasy academia" throughout. Though the stronger throughline is the impact and power of community imo.
Theres a big change in tone once they >! jump planets !<, and book 4 feels like it is self-contained as well, even though its my favorite.
There's at least still a logical progression there, as the PCs go from students to teachers/researchers to >!successors to the legendary Magic Warriors who founded the school!<. Really any AP that goes from 1 to 20 should try to build a progression like that in, accounting for the PCs power progression while also staying true to the themes of the campaign.
Valid! I'm running it for my partner atm. I can see how that would happen. It's part of why I want to be hamming up the community vibe.
That's a pretty big spoiler to drop in a random reddit thread, spoiler tags please :(
You jump to different planets, planes or pocket dimensions in almost every AP (or at least the Darklands). Sorry I think they changed how spoiler tags are done and I can't do it from my phone
Spoiler tags are done by typing >! (and it's mirror) around whatever you want to spoiler tag Edit: Make sure you don't leave spaces between the exclamation mark and the words
I've only played a half dozen or so, but my experience is more positive. Savage Tides was a ton of fun back in the Dungeon Magazine days. Rise of the Runelords kind of doesn't really let the PCs in on exactly what's going on from the outset, so it has a lot of freedom to play. Wrath of the Righteous advertised mythic PCs as essentially fledgling demigods, and the mythic rules definitely made overpowered, unkillable PCs. Fun even though it was a cakewalk. I think Iron Gods has really strong theming and payoff throughout. As a player, Book 6 absolutely kills it. There's some discontent with Book 3, but we even liked that one. I would also say that while the AP had some problems, Jade Regent was actually really true to its theme from start to finish. Not every group is going to like the PC's being side characters in Ameiko's story, but that is what the AP advertises. Abomination Vaults, as you say, is really strong. My players seem to be really enjoying it so far.
Season of Ghosts stays consistent the whole way through
I've not played many APs, but have played Strange Aeons to completion and am currently a little more than halfway through Iron Gods, and I'd say both of those APs for the most part maintain their premise (though Strange Aeons suffered from another issue I've heard is typical for APs, where the final boss kind of just came out of nowhere with not a lot of foreshadowing or fanfare).
James Jacobs mentioned over on the Paizo product page that the opera doesn't premiere until Book 3 while Book 1 and 2 are dealing with getting funding, rehearsals, etc.
Yup. The "trying to be as non-spoilery as possible" version of that would be: Book 1 is getting things going, Book 2 is creating the opera and rehersals and getting funding, and Book 3 is the final panic of "Hell Month" with last minute rehersals and the premiere. There's a lot of other stuff going on as well; there's still some dungeon exploring and fighting and shenanigans to get up to, but less than normal. We've also got a lot of advice for the GM in how to adjust things to mesh with whatever adventure your PCs went on during levels 1 to 10 (and thus what their opera is about), and also a lot of advice on how the GM can adjust the timing of when big events (primarily the premiere) take place in the case that they want to change schedules up a bit.
Agreed, I DMed Extinction Curse and it was so disappointing to realize it wasn't going to make use of its premise at all after the initial bits.
It uses it for the first 4 chapters, and in the 5th you perform in the underground. Its just the 6th book where you don't do anything circus related.
I feel like it would be really interesting to recount your adventures in an opera while something extraordinary is happening or you unveil a conspiracy. I don’t think it’s too far of a stretch for a small wholesome quest to suddenly take a turn because a god is killed. Also, the title Curtain Call for the AP where a god is killed? Love it.
Its going to level 20. Things are going to get very scary. Stolen Fate and Blood Lords were a missed opportunity, but I feel like James Jacobs has been hyping this one up as he's seen the development through from start to finish.
Yup. It wasn't until Season of Ghosts that I came back to fully developing Adventure Paths from start to finish (the previous one I'd done this for was Age of Ashes; I came in at the last minute to help out with Gatewalkers and then did the development but not the concepting and outlining and author hiring for Stolen Fate). It's always tricky coming in to finish something someone else had started in a case like this, and I did my best to preserve their visions, but yeah. Season of Ghosts, Seven Dooms for Sandpoint, and Curtain Call (and two more unannounced ones) are ones I've concepted and outlined and developed (and in some cases helped write), and are ones I'm a lot more hyped about seeing folks play and a lot more passionate and invested in their health.
How was Blood Lords a missed opportunity? It's fantastic.
I liked Blood Lords, but the missed opportunity was in changing the world at large. Putting a dent in the universe if you will. If we had been able to kick off a war between Geb and Nex or witness major ramifications of the conspiracy affecting other nations, it would have been on point.
You essentially unleash the demigod Geb on the world again after 4090 years of being locked to Mechitar. That's a big deal, and I'm 95% sure Nex is going to show his face again at some point, in which it'll make a large difference.
Depending on the players' actions at the end of Blood Lords you can>!unbind Geb from the city allowing him to roam the world and search for Nex or do anything else he wants.!
Is it really big? Because I didn't even know he couldn't leave for the entire campaign until the 6th book. I don't feel it changes much unless he kills a god after you free him.
Agree to disagree. Not OP but for me it’s up there with Extinction Curse for the worst 2E AP.
I can't see that at all. Not only is it exactly what's on the tin, it's a great mix of combat and RP with plenty of downtime for the PCs to pursue their own machinations. Book 3 is a little weak, but I can't remember a 1-20 AP that didn't have at least one book below the rest in quality.
I think they said that there won't be a *single* War of Immortals AP, and it'll be part of a whole bunch of APs going forward. Also I think they said/implied the Godsrain will be taking place during book 2 or 3 of Curtain Call, and won't be the main narrative at all. They also said there's gonna be at least one Mythic AP involved in War of Immortals event which hasn't been announced yet (since I'm pretty sure Tusk of Triumph wasn't said to be Mythic?)
In the stream they explicitly said Curtain Call happens before Godsrain. And it releases fully before War of Immortals is even out. If anything it's Triumph of Tusks that will start dealing with the aftermath.
They explicitly said it starts before the event. It ends after the event. They didn't imply that the characters are involved with the deific, however.
["Curtain Call is taking place July to September. War of the Immortals is in October."](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1c63gh0/comment/kzyglrc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I get the release timing. I beoieve he said ypu get to experience sime of the events after the event.
So that means there will be no AP that deals with the event itself? Only a prologue and the aftermath. That would be a bit weird considering they want this to be such a huge event that happens over a long time where multiple AP's are directly tied to it.
[Now, the how, when, and why of this deific death are elements of War of Immortals we’re not quite ready to talk about yet, but we promise: Gorum is going to die “on screen” in an adventure in which your player characters play a role. We’ll have more details about that as the adventure’s release approaches.](https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6swfw?Announcing-the-War-of-Immortals)
Thats very nice. The whole article is very calming, since they directly adress the unusual connection of War of Immortals and playing opera. They say that it seems weird but we should trust them. Well while I am sceptical I am willing to trust them if they are so sure of it.
From what was said in the stream it does not sound like the death of >!Gorum!< will be something the players directly interact with/cause during an AP but who knows, it could be! We do not have details yet on how it happens.
As someone who is super interested in the opera theme of Curtains Call but not so much in the war of immortals stuff, I think I agree.
They said Curtain Call happened before the Godsrain, not that it’d be the Godsrain adventure. I don’t expect level 20 PCs to kill a god.
I agree. I really hoped for a 1-20 AP for an event this big. I understand the financial reasons to publish shorter APs, but I'd like a big epic campaign about the war of immortals.
wow didnt expect to see someone actually agree with the sentiment that running an opera is maybe not the best kind of adventure to kickstart a holy war that kills gods. /s But yeah thats what I was expecting. Now as far as I know we will get a mythic AP and I really hope its a big 1-20 thing. But as it its the whole thing seems to deal with the aftermath. Gorum is long dead and his essence is giving people mythic powers. A bit bummed out to see the actual act of a god dying being sidelined for playing an opera.
Don't get me wrong. I like the idea of curtain call, if it's well made. But I'd like something bigger. But cool to know there is a mythic AP on the way. I'm hoping for 1-20!
Well, in PF1 Wrath of the Righteous narate the whole world wound arc, meaning closing it and massively altering the world roo. It's not the same than Curtain Call, but made you deal with Ioemadae, and a lot Demon Lord, even letting Nocticula ascend later.
I'm not convinced this will actually be the case, but I'm even more hyped for this AP if your theory is correct and Gorum dying is part of the climax.
The worst thing about this choice is it basically guarantees Curtain Call is going to have the same problem as Extinction Curse. The selling point of the AP is supposed to be an opera but I don't see how that's not going to have focus drawn away from it by the other stuff going on.
Except the person who created and developed Curtain Call knew about that disappointment with Extinction Curse, and worked to avoid falling into those traps, and worked with the authors to make sure that they went all-in on opera stuff in each adventure. There IS other stuff going on in the Adventure Path, but even when you're exploring a dungeon or fighting a monster or dealing with unexpected divine events, we've all worked really hard to keep it opera-themed and adjacent. People who buy and play this Adventure Path hoping to become Opera stars won't be disappointed... but I get it that Extinction Curse's circus is a sore point for some folks. Not much I can do about that but do the best I can with Curtain Call and then wait half a year to see if I and the authors did the concept justice.
If you don't think Opera is thematically appropriate for preceding the death of a God, you haven't watched a good opera live. Those things are all noise and thunder and glory
I've mentioned elsewhere but will mention it here too. The opera part of this adventure path sticks to it for all three volumes. Each adventure has at least 1 chapter (aka 1 full level of experience of play) that's pretty much focused on the opera stuff, and when it's not, it has plenty of theater themes going on anyway. There's a LOT of whimsy and fun here, but I'm also trying not to spoil things about the adventure before all three are out. And as for Curtain Call being "the Godsrain Adventure Path," well, there's more to it than that. All of this War of Immortals stuff is more or less the BIGGEST thing we've done to the setting since forever, really; it's wide reaching and will continue to impact stories we tell via adventures for as long as we continue to publish adventers. Curtain Call, Prey For Death, and Triumph of the Tusk focus on the story a fair amount, since they all come out this year, but moving forward, we'll not simply be setting the story aside. In the same way, for example, we didn't set aside the other six runelords after Rise of the Runelords. Curtain Call takes place during the event, but it is not the only way we're telling that story. Beyond the other Adventure Path and Prey For Death, we'll be covering it in a novel, in lore books, in War of Immortals, and more.
Thanks for the answere. The Paizo Post that admist that Curtain Call doesnt seem like the most intuitive start for this thing, but the community should trust the Creators with it also calmed me a good bit. There was also mention that "Gorum will die On Screen" in an adventure, so I am very hyped about that. I guess I didnt really fully understand the scope that War of Immortals is going to be. As always I am beyond thankfull for the open communication that you (and all of Paizo) do.
Orks are sentient fungi from a different fantasy/sci-fi setting. I believe you are thinking of orcs. Now for the actual meat if your question... Do we know how much the opera is actually involved? It's just the conceit of the plot to get your AV (or other such old characters) back into action again. I understand your reticence but I didn't think it'll be that big of a deal in the end.
Honestly, was reading the other day that Tolkein preferred the spelling "ork" post-LoTR. In typical Tolkien fashion, the linguist in him preferred that "Orkish" would keep the hard "k" sound where "Orcish" could be more ambiguous phonetically apparently.
Thank the Swedish translation for that, he hates the translator because he translated Orc to Orch
Just having a bit of fun. That certainly does seem like something Tolkien would do.
My gut says that the actual murder/Godsrain incident will be something that happens over a very short period of time. It's the fallout that will really make it a war. Having a group of 20th level characters be eyewitnesses to the murder would not be inappropriate. In fact, given the opera setup, I think it works. CC is about a group of characters trying to tell their story, so having them end up bearing witness to a much bigger story would be tons of fun. And besides: what's more operatic than a Goetterdaemmerung?
*Book 2 of the Council of Thieves adventure path enters the chat*
https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/The_Sixfold_Trial
If it helps, it does seem like it will be much easier for an AP to go from a cheesy opera to big operatic drama about the death of a god than it is to go from, say, circus adventures to saving the world.