back to the origins of this . It predates my FOREWORD work on the Lost Lands, it predates my time with Frog God Games, and in many ways it predates my time as a Welcome to the Aegis of Empires designer notes. This professional writer. It goes all the way back to 1988 when ungodly huge document was what I sent to the poor writers TSR released a hardback game book that blew my young that I hired to author the six adventures of the adventure mind: Adventures by . The book came out path… er, five adventures actually, but more on that later. during that weird quasi-transition from 1st Edition to 2nd Yes, it’s almost 30,000 words and 48 manuscript pages as I Edition and was rather scattered in its contents: some class type it here on a Word document, though I’m sure that will stuff, the concept of deities’ avatars, some new monsters, change in the layout process. But here it is in all its glory key NPCs of the Greyhawk setting, a bunch of new spells, for you to peruse at your leisure. And it leaves me with one but most importantly—for me at least—were descriptions burning question: Why? of legendary locations in the Greyhawk setting. I became hooked on those few paragraphs provided for each, reading and rereading them again and again. One place that I My poor authors certainly weren’t thrilled to receive a couldn’t get out of my head were the Pits of Azak-Zil… 40+ page outline to review before they could get started a haunted meteor crater, filled with the ghosts of dwarf on writing their adventures. Why would I do that to miners, and lost treasures, and a failed quest to find it them? And why would you, gentle reader, want to see that left behind a cryptic journal that could guide others. it? To address the second question first: I guess it really Almost immediately I set out to create the lost journal of doesn’t matter why you want it; we offered it as bonus Pont Sandmorg of Narwell—handwritten on plain copy content in the Kickstarter, and some of you brave souls paper. That sheaf of pages written in my teenage scrawl has jumped on board and demanded it. Maybe you are absolute been stuffed between the last page and back cover in my completionists and simply must have the entirety of any copy of that book for more than 30 years now. I imagine it’ll project you support. Maybe you just like seeing how the be there another 30 at least. sausage is made. Maybe you hope for a glimpse into my sick, depraved, sadistic, Type A soul. Maybe you’ve got a little of that sickness yourself… Regardless of the reason, Also around this time is when I began submitting you have spoken, and so it shall be! adventure proposals to Dungeon Magazine. I assumed if I could get a few published, then it was only a matter of time before I could write my own adventure about the Pits of As to the former question: Why would I do that to them? Azak-Zil. A mere 15 years later, my first adventure proposal Well, there’s a story to that. was accepted (“Tammeraut’s Fate” #104) and was followed quickly by the acceptance of a proposal for a trilogy (the But before we go any further, it is imperative that you Istivin trilogy in issues #117, 118, and 119). And they were all aware there will be… Greyhawk adventures! I had other submissions accepted, including one that was inspired directly from the material in Greyhawk Adventures when I visited the deadly valley of the Csipros Erd in issue #131’s “The Hateful Legacy”. As the submissions continued, I blew the dust off my Pont SPOILERS!!! Sandmorg journal as I began to plan how to do justice with These is a document about the design that went into the my ideas for Azak-Zil. creation of the Aegis of Empires adventure path, and it must therefore, necessarily, contain spoilers regarding said path. Then Dungeon Magazine came up with the idea for me. So I hope it goes without saying, but if you intend to be a They had begun doing adventure paths with Shackled City, player of the adventure path rather than the GM, you should , and Savage Tides... all set in Greyhawk even! I stop reading now. These notes will quite literally give away began to work up my idea for an AP with Azak-Zil and the everything about the adventures to follow… oftentimes in fallout of the Greyhawk Wars as its centerpiece. Eventually excruciatingly specific detail. You have been warned. I submitted the proposal for a 4-adventure Greyhawk adventure path called Ruins of Aerdy. I never really got an So first, as to my earlier comment of mentioning five answer on it; it was never accepted, but it was never really authors being sent the outline rather than six, well that’s rejected either. It just languished in the submission pile part ofSample the story. And to understand it all we must go with no end in sight. Then fileannounced that Wizards

iv of the Coast was pulling the license for Dungeon Magazine, already had the concept of radioactive exposures in the D&D, Greyhawk, etc. The submission was dead, so I turned world from Tom Knauss’s metallurgic amber in Fields of my adventure writing to all things Golarion over the next Blood and Bill Webb’s mutant-infested wasteland in Sword of few years. Air. There was nothing in my Ruins of Aerdy AP that couldn’t be approached from a different angle specific to the Lost Lands, and so I set out to rework that outline into what was However, when Bill Webb approached me about at first known as the Ashes of Empire AP to complement the starting up Frog God Games, and incorporating all of the release of the forthcoming Lost Lands world book. Necromancer Games catalog of adventures, and ultimately into creating a cohesive campaign setting that could encompass it all, I set out to put together the Lost Lands. My first problem was that by this time, the 6-adventure Doing so allowed me revisit a great many ideas from my AP had more or less become the standard format. I realized home brew games and how I would develop a game world that with the greater scope and scale of the Lost Lands if it were up to me, along with the near-endless wealth of compared to the relatively small land mass covered in the already existing material through Necromancer Games and Greyhawk sub-continent, I could greatly expand on my the fledgling publications of Frog God. In doing so, I was meteor crater adventure and split it into two adventures: able to put together something of vast size and scope that one for the investigation and journey and one for the could accommodate almost any style of play or campaign exploration of the site itself. That brought me to five preference. The Lost Lands developed with iconic locations adventures, but I was at a loss for what to do for a sixth. like Bard’s Gate, and Rappan Athuk: The Dungeon of I had a hole available for a low/mid-level adventure but I Graves, the Stoneheart Mountains, the Wizard’s Wall, didn’t have any ideas of how to fill it. I needed something the temple-city of Tsar, the development of the Gulf of urban really, so fit the themes and different aspects of the Akados and Sinar Coast regions with their rich historical, central Lost Lands that I wanted to explore but didn’t have geographical, and cultural interplay. I had empires striving anything that was a good match. Then Jeff Swank sent me and falling and the successor states and the hidden drivers the unsolicited manuscript for his delightful The Ebon Soul, behind the scenes for more than 5,000 years of events. and I knew I had my sixth.

We added exotic locales like Razor Coast, the Northlands, As a result of the reworking of the outlines for the the blighted city of Castorhage, and name-dropped different adventures I had previously intended to write, references of historical connections to places like Tircople, along with the inclusion of Jeff ’s adventure, I realized there and the Kingdoms of Foere, and the Haunted Steppe. And was no way I would have time to knock out the writing on finally as it all came together I remembered the Ruins of this six-adventure monstrosity. So almost 10 years of design Aerdy and realized I had the means to rebuild it from the notes coalesced into a single master document and I began ground up and make it serve as a perfect showcase for recruiting authors to join me on this project. The lucky many of the mentioned-but-never-seen locations of the few turned out to be Alistair Rigg, Jeffrey Swank, Matthew Lost Lands we had been teasing for nearly a decade. Goodall, Steven T. Helt, Tom Knauss, and . The shifts in the industry and at Frog God Games resulted in me bringing this to Legendary Games in mid-stream to The Greyhawk elements had to be removed, of course, allow it to reach fruition, but at long last here it is in all its but the universal themes and adventure concepts were glory. still good and held a flavor that I wanted for the Lost Lands. A lost meteor crater promising danger and wealth, a treacherous journey through hostile lands following As I said to quote Jerry Garcia and company in my foreword a mysterious journal to reach said treasure. All of these to The Slumbering Tsar Saga in 2012, “What a long, strange were still viable options to make a great adventure path, trip it’s been.” and some of the organic developments of the Lost Lands by myself and other authors over the years lent themselves Amen to that, brother. very nicely to fit the bill. I didn’t need the rugged Abbor- Alz hills, I had a Haunted Steppe wracked by millennia of warfare and slaughter. I had lost colonies and lost Greg A. Vaughan expeditions seeking to find those colonies. I had a history October 31, 2020 of monstrous meteorite impacts upon the planet going backSample to the earliest years of Necromancer Games. I even file

v Table of Contents

Introduction ...... 2 Adventure 5: Race for Shataakh-Uulm ...... 258 Adventure 1: The Book in the Old House . . . . . 10 Chapter One: Into the Haunted Steppe . . . . . 263 Sidebar: Eber and the Kingdom of the Vast . . . . 15 Sidebar: The Haunted Steppe ...... 266 Sidebar: Sir Urvitus Voren of Tourne . . . . . 20 Chapter Two: All Roads Lead to Sorrow . . . . . 276 Chapter One: An Exorcism in Eber ...... 24 Chapter Three: The Pit of the Burning Star . . . . . 322 Chapter Two: Back to Front Street ...... 44 Player Handouts ...... 395 Player Handouts ...... 58 Adventure 6: Knight Fall in Old Curgantium . . . . . 396 Adventure 2: The Ebon Soul ...... 62 Sidebar: Timeline of Hyperborea and Curgantium 402 Sidebar: The Duchy of Ysser ...... 67 Chapter One: The Ruins of Curgantium . . . . . 408 Chapter One: The Margravine Vanderhaven . . . 71 Sidebar: The Nightscream ...... 420 Sidebar: Vampires as Player Characters . . . . . 85 Chapter Two: Old Curgantium ...... 422 Chapter Two: Going to the Chapel ...... 91 Chapter Three: The Tower of Oerson ...... 459 Chapter Three: The Rivals and the Ritual . . . . . 99 Chapter Four: The Codex Found ...... 474 Adventure 3: When Comes the Moon ...... 114 Player Handouts ...... 505 Sidebar: Timeline of Asteria Point ...... 117 Appendix A: New Monsters ...... 508 Sidebar: Yolbiac Vale and the Cretian Mountains 119 Appendix B: Magic and Equipment ...... 528 Chapter One: Home of the Old Gods . . . . . 121 Equipment ...... 528 Chapter Two: On the Mountain ...... 150 Magic Items ...... 529 The Asterian Monks ...... 171 Major Artifacts ...... 534 Sidebar: Ancient Languages of Akados . . . . . 174 Mystic Tomes ...... 536 Adventure 4: Legend of the Burning Star . . . . . 176 Rare Materials ...... 536 Sidebar: Timeline of the Pit of the Burning Star 182 Spells and Rituals ...... 539 Chapter One: The Heart of the Kingdom . . . . . 186 Appendix C: Gods of the High Places ...... 542 Sidebar: Nains ...... 187 Unkeyed Maps ...... 545 Sidebar: Panetoth ...... 194 Chapter Two: The Grey Citadel of Dun Eamon 204 Sidebar: Dun Eamon ...... 206 Chapter Three: To the Wizard’s Wall . . . . . 224 Sidebar: Tanith ...... 226 Sidebar: Gravenfar’s Journal ...... 238 Player Handouts ...... 240 Sample file

vi Table of Maps

The Western Kingdoms ...... 14 5C. The Conroi Wall ...... 285 1A. The Old House ...... 29 5D. Gravenfar’s Cave ...... 289 1B. The Sealed Basement ...... 56 5D. Gravenfar’s Cave Interior ...... 296 Kingdom of Foere ...... 67 5E. Sixtun’s Spyglass ...... 302 2A. Vanderhaven Manor ...... 73 5F. Hallelujah Springs ...... 305 2B. Bastion of Righteous Decree ...... 92 5H. Earl Rannulf ’s Camp ...... 312 2C. The Lich’s Laboratory ...... 100 5I. The Pit of the Burning Star ...... 324 3A. The Asterian Abbey (Ground) ...... 129 5K. Azmerius’ Adit ...... 342 3A. The Asterian Abbey (2nd/3rd) ...... 134 5L. The Prize Pit ...... 351 3A. The Asterian Abbey (4th/5th) ...... 137 5M. Fuming Chasm ...... 354 3B. The Old Catacombs ...... 143 5N. Caleen Cache ...... 360 3D. Werewolf ’s Lair ...... 152 5O. The Nest ...... 365 3E. Fisher from Outside ...... 154 5P. The Traveler’s Tomb ...... 375 3F. The Bridgehead ...... 167 5Q. The Mother Lode ...... 380 Grand Duchy of Reme ...... 185 Kingdom of Foere ...... 401 4A. Dorse’s Paper Shoppe ...... 188 Grand Duchy of Reme ...... 409 4B. Memorial Square ...... 196 Old Curgantium ...... 412 4C. Devil’s Rest Hospital for Invalids ...... 199 6B. Base Camp ...... 423 Dun Eamon ...... 206 6C. Lost Library ...... 433 4D. Bannon’s Library ...... 208 6D. Ancient Catacombs (ground) ...... 439 4E. Elinda’s Workshop ...... 210 6D. Ancient Catacombs (lower) ...... 449 4F. Keep Away ...... 213 6E. Curgantium Sewers ...... 453 4G. Ebon Union Safehouse ...... 218 6F. Ruined Theater ...... 455 4H. The Hidden Cleft ...... 231 6G. Tower of Oerson (sublevel one) . . . . . 461 The Haunted Steppe ...... 277 6H. Tower of Oerson (sublevel two) . . . . . 462 5B. The Circled Twelve ...... 279 6I. Tunnels of the Underguild ...... 488 Sample file

1 own complete adventure path. Included in our suggestions Adventure Path are adventure path options made up of Legendary Games adventures and Frog God Game adventures, but these are far from the only available adventures out there that can be Introduction used. So brush the dust off your favorite adventures that you’ve always wanted to run and crack them open to fill The Aegis of Empires Adventure Path is a Lost Lands up your players’ dance card as they undertake the Aegis of adventure path that is designed for a party of four to six Empires Adventure Path. PCs. It is written for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Pathfinder Second Edition, and 5e game systems. Aegis of Empires is not a traditional adventure path in that its The Lost Lands constituent adventures do not run continuously from the first to the last. It is expected that the PCs will have other As mentioned, this adventure path is ostensibly set in the adventures in between the adventure path episodes and Lost Lands campaign setting, the world setting of the many perhaps even concurrently for a truly ambitious GM. As Frog God Games and Necromancer Games adventures that such, the adventure path is not designed to take a party have been published since the launch of the SRD in 2000. of 1st-level characters and advance them through their As such, there are literally hundreds of adventures already careers exclusively through its own events. So while the set in the Lost Lands dating back more than two decades, adventure path begins for low-level PCs, it does to require and in 2019 Frog God Games published its World of the that they begin their adventuring careers with its initial Lost Lands setting book. The Aegis of Empires adventure adventure, nor will it provide the requisite XP and treasure path, through the cooperation of Legendary Games and to successfully propel them through its entire course Frog God Games, is set in the Lost Lands setting and is without the use of supplementary materials. In a sense it compatible with that game world. However, though it is is therefore a campaign arc rather than an adventure path. set in the Lost Lands, you as the GM can always lift it and set it in your own campaign world as you see fit. It is your adventure now; do with it as your will. However, since it is The campaign arc provides a common theme around intended for use with the Lost Lands, and you may not be which a campaign can be built without forcing the PCs familiar with that setting, a little background is in order. down a particular path or exclusively through a particular set of adventures. In fact, a GM could use the arc as merely one of multiple themes running through his campaign, The history of the Lost Lands is both marked and marred as it inherently allows flexibility in character choice and by the rise and fall of great empires. Two great empires in plot direction. Of course, each adventure can be used as particular: the Hyperborean Empire (1 I.R.–2509 I.R.* [or a stand-alone episode without using the arc at all, any 2584 I.R. depending on how it is calculated]) and what is of the adventures of the arc can be skipped at the GM’s chiefly considered its successor state in the Hyperborean discretion. At the same time the campaign arc allows GMs Monarchy of the Foeredewaith, aka the Kingdoms of Foere to use published materials to unobtrusively tie elements of (2744 I.R.–3213ish I.R.) are those that are most universally his campaign together and provide his players with “Aha!” recognized as the empires of Akados. These particular moments as the plot themes develop without having to empires treated with, warred against, and otherwise develop them all themselves or rely on the more structured interacted with other empires over the years including the format of a traditional adventure path. Khemitian Triple Kingdom, the Ammuyad Caliphate, and the Huun Imperium of the eastern continent of Libynos, as well as, the foundational Borean Empire of the polar Never fear, though. Just because this adventure path/ continent of Boros, and some of these interactions play a campaign arc doesn’t fulfill a party of player characters role in this adventure path. However, the true focus of the throughout their entire career doesn’t mean it is incumbent path is upon the empires specifically of Akados proper, i.e. upon you to fill in the blanks. While many GMs like to the Hyperborean and the Foerdewaith. introduce their own adventures into their campaign and/ or heavily modify existing adventures to serve this purpose, if that’s not your thing this adventure path can still be for Not overtly included in this tally but nonetheless integral you. Included below are suggestions for other published to this adventure path is the often-forgotten third empire adventures to plug into the gaps in order to make your of Akados, an empire that warred with Hyperborea for 676 Sampleyears and represented the single-greatestfile known threat * I.R. is “Imperial Reckoning” established at the founding of the Hyperborean Empire of Akados.

2 to that empire for much of that time. That this empire into Semuric called the Kitaab al-Zabba. This translation ultimately disintegrated, allegedly under its own internal was then later copied by the Khemitite artist and scholar pressures, leads to much of the nonchalance regarding its Kulophon into both Khemitian and High Boros before passing and its place in history. But in truth this empire, he was burned alive for heresy by the Church Militans of the Invincible Horde of the Hundaei (7 I.R.–683 I.R.), known Alcaldar. It was thought that all copies of these translations among their enemies as the Huns, forms perhaps the most were destroyed, but rumor spoke of at least one copy of the significant backbone and contribution to all humanity on High Boros translation, called the Codex Ibnathi, surviving Akados and indeed the entire world of Lloegyr. when one of Kulophon’s apprentices took it and fled the Khemitian city of Menefet where Kulophon had lived. The adventure begins in 3517 I.R. After that, all knowledge of the book’s whereabouts is lost to history… Adventure Path Background The famed adventurer/explorer Aroldus Gravenfar— sometimes called Seeker Gravenfar for his reputation as an AE1: The Book in the Old House By Alistair Rigg explorer and most often simply Gravenfar because of the extent to which his reputation preceded him—disappeared 2nd level 80 years ago. According to who is telling the story, he either disappeared somewhere in the trackless wastes of the The Book in the Old House takes place in the city of Eber Haunted Steppe supposedly retracing the steps of the ill- (EE-bur), once a part of the Kingdoms of Foere (fo-AIR) fated Caleen colonization of almost six centuries earlier or before serving as a time as the capital of Kear (KEER), the somewhere high in the Stoneheart Mountains in search Infernal Realm of the vampire-lord known as the Singed of what he called the “crèche of Hyperborea”, a phrase Man. Eber was liberated by the paladin-hero Sir Varral found in one of his many published journals—though no the Blessed and ultimately became the capital of the one is certain what that phrase might mean exactly since independent Kingdom of the Vast nearly three centuries the Hyperboreans are well known from history to have ago. The adventure tells the stories of an ancient alienist descended from the northern continent of Boros more named Ellerby “Eb” Wallix driven from Courghais (coor- than three-and-a-half-thousand years ago. Whatever the ASE) by the Knights of Macobert in 3367 I.R. for his aberrant truth, none has ever find the final resting place of the practices. He was never hunted down due to the increasing legendary man. persecution of the knighthood and the chaos that ensued following the Foerdewaith Wars of Succession and the Among Gravenfar’s famed exploits, the one possibly most dozens of revolts and civil wars they spawned. When the noted among true scholars was his alleged discovery of the knighthood was largely destroyed and forced into hiding legendary Book of Aeons in the long-considered-mythical thirteen years later, the matter was forgotten except in the ruins of ancient Ibnath in far Libynos. What became of memory of a knight named Barivoren Wallix, nephew of the coveted book before his disappearance, none can say, the exiled Ellerby. and most assume that he took the ancient manuscript with him to wherever he disappeared. However, for countless A century and a half later, a young knight named Urvitus years it has been searched for by those hungry for ancient Voren has come upon the papers of his ancestor Barivoren knowledge or the cosmic powers it is said to control, or and his uncompleted life’s task of destroying all that both. Despite the loss of this ancient text, the original is once remained of the villainous wizard Eb Wallix. Having not the only version said to exist. According to old stories, learned that Wallix had relocated to a house in Eber, Urvitus at some point in the past the legendary bibliophile/thief sets out to destroy it only to find the legacy of the wizard Takh-Nir-E of Zabba (he who is most famous for stealing very much alive and that he himself is a descendent of the the equally legendary Book of the Star-Seed) is said to have crazed spellcaster. Only with the intervention of a party likewise discovered Ibnath and spirited the Book of Aeons of adventurers is Ellerby’s haunted house destroyed and out from under the watchful eyes of its guardians. The Urvitus Voren redeemed from the possessing influence of story goes on to say that Takh-Nir-E elected to eventually a page from the foul Codex Ibnathi hidden in the house’s sneak back in and return the book for unspecified reasons, basement 150 years before. but Samplenot before having made at least one translation of it file

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