Curse of the Crimson Throne series:

• Book 1: Edge of Anarchy
• Book 2: Seven Days to the Grave
• Book 3: Escape From Old Korvosa
• Book 4: A History of Ashes
• Book 5: Skeletons of Scarwall
• Book 6: Crown of Fangs
• Reconstructing Curse of the Crimson Throne

It’s the epic climax of my Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign deconstruction, which is both GM prep for me and, hopefully, GM inspiration for you! For the last time this week, then, let’s remind ourselves of my evergreen caveats for this series:

First and foremost, these edits are there to make the game that I want to run. What I consider “essential,” you may not, and vice-versa. You would make (or have made) different decisions, which is both natural and part of the fun. Feel free to comment below if you see different opportunities.

Second, I’m going to be making heavy edits. If you’ve run or played in Curse of the Crimson Throne, I’m going to be deleting your favorite side quest, or NPC, or completely rewriting villain’s motivations and backstories. When I’m done, it’s likely not going to resemble the story you know.

Third, there will be rampant spoilers—in fact, once I dive in, these posts are essentially spoilers from start to finish. If you are a player in one of these APs or plan to be, these articles aren’t for you. (If you plan on GMing it or have done so, however… welcome!)

Finally, I don’t yet know what game system I’ll be using to run this Adventure Path, but it likely won’t be Pathfinder. Try not to get caught up in how dramatically I’m reducing the possible XP or treasure, or what I’m doing to CR of encounters. These articles are meant to be system agnostic, focused on story beats rather than mechanics.

With those reminders out of the way, let’s turn back (finally!) to Korvosa and Book 6 of the AP, Crown of Fangs, by Tito Leati.

Curse of the Crimson Throne 6: Crown of Fangs

It’s been a while since the party has been part of the happenings in their city of origin. At the outset of Book 3, they traveled to the isolated island of Old Korvosa to find their friend and ally Vencarlo. The PCs eventually rescued him and discovered he was with Queen Ileosa’s former seneschal Neolandus, who had definitive proof of the queen’s treachery and corruption. They hustled out of Old Korvosa in secret, taking Neolandus north, and then set on a quest to the distant Cinderlands. There they met a variety of Shoanti tribespeople, and, eventually, the venerable Sun Shaman told them the history of the queen’s newfound powers, housed in an ancient evil dragon’s fangs. The Sun Shaman performed a ritual to bestow the PCs powers and weapons to fight the queen’s powerful relic, and they returned to Korvosa as quickly as possible.

The journey from the Cinderlands to Korvosa is a time to train and gain some much-needed downtime before the final battles. It’s also a chance for a final Harrow reading to foreshadow how those battles might go. Book 6 kicks off as the heroes return home.

Chapter 1: Streets of Chaos

Queen Ileosa has not been idle while the PCs were away. Riots and plagues no longer sweep across Korvosa, but there is a martial law in place, with Gray Maidens maintaining harsh order everywhere. The Sable Company, Korvosan Guard, and Hellknights are largely gone, leaving only the queen’s forces. Perhaps, as they approach, a PC glimpses a dragon soaring over the city or spies the dim silhouette of a devil perched upon a rampart, clear signals that not only have the queen’s allies taken control, but those allies are as corrupt as her.

Vencarlo has returned as well, and he and Neolandus await the party in an ossuary beneath the city, sheltered by the church of Pharasma (how do they know where to meet? I’ll have to figure this out as I go). Cressida Croft, former Field Commander of the Korvosan Guard, is there as well, along with any other NPCs from earlier adventures that make sense in the story. There, the party’s allies can hear tales of the Cinderlands and catch up on current events. The queen has sheltered in a fortified Castle Korvosa, and hasn’t been seen in weeks, though her forces continue to multiply within the city. Rumors are that the queen has transformed into a literal monster.

Cressida has a plan to expose Neolandus’ existence and story, rallying the remaining noble houses against the evil of Queen Ileosa. She wants to weaken the queen’s base of power first, though, and outlines several ways the PCs might do so. These quests, effectively, outline all the PCs’ actions leading up to the final confrontation with Queen Ileosa. It’s a similar adventure structure as several other parts of this campaign—basically, “do these things in any order”—and sounds like a ton of fun. The quests are:

1. A new “hero of the people” has been fighting rebels in the streets. Cressida strongly suspects that this hero, a man named Trifaccia, is a plant by the queen. Find out who or what he is and, if needed, stop him.
2. A black dragon is taking nest in Castle Korvosa and sometimes flies overhead to cow the populace. The dragon must be defeated.
3. The role of castle seneschal is currently held by a bloated wizard named Togomor. Defeat him or secure his surrender.
4. Ishani Dhatri, Abadaran priest and vocal opponent of his church’s public endorsement of Ileosa, has vanished. He was last seen approaching the castle. Can you find out what happened to him?
5. A group of Red Mantis assassins have taken up residence in the castle. Find proof that Ileosa is the reason the Red Mantis has come to Korvosa in the first place.
6. The Gray Maidens are a menace, and they need to be disbanded. The Maidens’ commander Sabina Merrin and their chief indoctrinator—a mysterious woman whose identity remains unknown outside of the organization—are within the castle. If you can secure the defeat or surrender of these two remaining leaders, the Gray Maidens will lose much of their command structure.
7. Find proof that Ileosa is trafficking with devils, or that devils dwell within Castle Korvosa.
8. Ileosa must answer for her crimes. She’s in the castle, somewhere. Can you capture her to bring her to justice?

The module outlines the party’s progress with “Rebellion Points.” As the RP meter ticks up, the queen’s influence on the city weakens and rebel forces strengthen and begin acting out. This system is very similar to the “Respect Points” in Book 4, and, just like then, I’m inclined to replace this system with a simpler eight-segment progress clock.

Though the quests can be accomplished in any order, those first two can be done outside of the castle, while the others more clearly involve an incursion into Castle Korvosa. Those two quests, then, are outlined in this chapter.

1) Korvosa’s New Hero – Unbeknownst to the PCs or their allies, the queen had been using a powerful efreeti named Yzahnum to craft the Gray Maidens’ armor and arms. Once he’d fully supplied her army, she released him into the city. The efreeti chose to take the guise of a new defender of the people, the faux hero Trifacci, a counter to the PCs’ own popularity and that of Vencarlo’s alter-ego Blackjack. He now sends roaming gangs of thugs into the streets to cause chaos and mayhem, then gleefully sweeps in as Trifacci and slaughters them all. Though the populace is appreciative of someone cleaning the streets of trouble, there is something cruel and merciless about the man that makes them fearful. Of course, Trifacci also spouts a lot of false pro-queen rhetoric to whomever will listen.

Whenever the party is out and about in the city, they can easily be attacked by one of these gangs of thugs. Normally, this would be easy work for a group of powerful PCs, but the efreeti is watching from the shadows and granting the thugs’ Wish spells, severely complicating any battle. Then, in a dramatic moment, Trifacci can sweep in, kill a thug or two, and claim the PCs are impersonating the actual heroes. He’ll challenge one to a duel, and at some point, his true identity will come out.

This whole setup is often something I’d find needlessly complicated, but in the spirit of Blackjack and the growing folk celebrity of the party, it’s a fun “seed of chaos” the queen has planted. Plus, the whole Wish encounter and fighting a masked-hero-who-turns-into-a-flaming-djinni sounds like a blast.

2) The Black Dragon – The backstory on how Queen Ileosa met and charmed a dragon is something the PCs will never uncover. In the module, Ileosa used mind magic to bend the dragon to her will and gave it to her Gray Maidens commander Sabina as a mount. Furthermore, as written Sabina is horrified by the queen’s actions these past months and is ready to surrender herself to the PCs and aid them in killing the dragon. Thus, when she hears of the party’s arrival in the city, she mounts the dragon to go begin a battle in which she’ll pull a heel-turn on the queen.

I find this whole setup hard to justify. The Gray Maidens have been a plague upon the city, including the torture and mental manipulation of new recruits. Sabina no doubt had countless opportunities to undermine the queen’s plans or even assassinate her, yet has remained the loyal lieutenant who sees redemption in a group of local heroes nowhere near as powerful as the queen’s forces? Then, she somehow learns of the PCs’ arrival and can get the dragon out of the city without a force of other Gray Maidens joining her? Never mind the idea that a 15^th-level black dragon is going to succumb to a charm or geas spell and blindly allow itself to be subservient to Sabina. For me, then, this whole story beat is a “nope,” though the idea of a dragon ally is great and something I want to preserve.

In my story, the black dragon Zarmangarof was drawn to Korvosa by the power of the Fangs of Kazavon, and slyly offered its services to the queen, knowing that he will live far longer than any human and can someday possess the fangs for himself. He is not Sabina’s mount nor is held in secret within the castle, but instead routinely flies over Korvosa to seed fear and awe into its people. The PCs can set up whatever ambush or trap for the dragon they can envision, and it will be one heck of a fight when they do (and likely quite public to both the city’s populace and the castle).

This change leaves Sabina as still in charge of the Gray Maidens and a threat needing to be neutralized. She can still be conflicted about her actions and what she’s enabled the queen to accomplish but is likely irredeemable at this point.

Chapter 2: Assault on the Castle 

At some point, the PCs will need to decide how to enter Castle Korvosa. Queen Ileosa tasked her new seneschal Togomor to confiscate all known maps of the structure, and to assassinate any retired servants or guards with knowledge of its interior. Thankfully, the party has access to Cressida and Trinia, both of whom can outline the castle’s grounds and general interior layout. Their real asset, of course, is Neolandus, who knows the place intimately, including many secret passageways. None of them can say how the queen may have changed the structure recently or what guardians she might employ these days, but I’d basically supply the players with detailed maps and allow them to plan whatever entrance they want.

In terms of defenses, Gray Maiden palace guards are stationed regularly, and there are also Gray Maiden patrols, Red Mantis assassins, and six Erinyes devils. The PCs can sneak or fight their way to the castle’s dungeon, where Neolandus and Thousand Bones have said the fangs of Kazavon were housed, or can head to the throne room to take on Queen Ileosa directly, depending on their plan and priorities. As you’d expect, Castle Korvosa is a large, six-level, 100-room map thoroughly detailed in the module itself, with traps and various monsters within. I won’t detail all of it here, but will say regarding their quests from Cressida:

3) Togomor the Wizard – Unless the PCs have lured him elsewhere purposefully or because of a loud battle, Togomor and his imp familiar are in Neolandus’ former apartment on the second floor of the castle. He’s an odious man, and under the control of a devil ally of the queen’s named Sermingnatto (see #7 below). Assuming the PCs defeat him and plunder his apartment, they’ll find his spellbooks, lots of magic items, but also the plans to creating the construct that killed Ishani (see #4 below), plus lots of tomes on ways of achieving immortality (most of which are bunk, but give clues to the queen’s motivation). Most importantly, there’s a map to the Sunken Queen, where Ileosa is currently.

4) Ishani, Priest of Abadar – Sadly, he’s dead in the dungeons after torture by a creature called an akaruzug (I’ll have to decide whether to keep this detail or change the monster, but it seems to fit well enough lore-wise). The module suggests the PCs could raise Ishani from the dead, but this falls into the sort of magic I find story-breaking in fantasy TTRPGs. Instead, I can imagine a PC having the ability to speak with his spirit or somehow understand what happened to him, and that he was lured into the castle by his sister Vavana, who is now a Gray Maiden and turned on him.

5) Red Mantis assassins – Any Red Mantis assassins guard the roof and fifth floor of the castle, led by a woman named Mistress Kayltanya. After their defeats throughout the previous books, they are particularly interested in killing the PCs, and there’s ample evidence of their contracts with Queen Ileosa on this floor if/when the party prevails. There’s also a ghost on the fifth floor that I’ll likely exclude, as it doesn’t add any information beyond what Neolandus has already provided.

6) Gray Maidens – In my version of the story, both Sabina and the previously-unknown indoctrinator of the Gray Maidens, Ishani’s sister Vavana, are in the castle. They’re most likely in the throne room guarding the queen (see #8 below) and can be defeated in the battle there.

7) Trafficking with devils – The PCs are first likely to encounter the Erinyes devils who patrol the castle and guard its dungeon, which is evidence enough of Queen Ileosa’s dealings with them. There are also various imps littered throughout the castle, a trio of barbed devils called the Yallops on the second floor, a horned devil named Mavrokeras on the third floor, hell hounds in the throne room, and the belier devil Sermignatto—the most dangerous creature still in the castle—who can be anywhere it makes sense but who likely manifests after Togomor is dead. Which is all to say, the evidence of devil-trafficking will be everywhere, and the PCs can figure out what clues might satisfy the goal of fueling Korvosa’s populace against the queen. If needed, there’s even a full written contract between Asmodeus and Queen Ileosa in the castle, which feels a little on the nose to me. A fun Easter egg to other APs is a book called the “Truths of the Sihedron,” which was written by Sermignatto and chronicles the cruelties and torments inflicted by each Runelord in ancient Thassilon.

8) Queen Ileosa – The PCs will think they’ve found Queen Ileosa in her throne room, guarded by Vavana Dhatri (Ishani’s sister, see #4 above), three hell hounds, and Gray Maiden royal guards. Since I rewrote Sabina’s heel-turn in the previous chapter, she’s probably here as well. In reality, this creature is a simulacrum created by Ileosa’s own blood and powerful magic, something known by Vavana but not Sabina. How this false queen interacts with the PCs will depend a lot on how they entered the castle and what’s happened to date – she could immediately order her guards to slay the usurpers and traitors or invite them in as guests and thank them for their service in protecting Korvosa’s people. At some point, however, a fight likely breaks out and she’ll dissolve to blood when killed. Sabina and the other Gray Maidens will be horrified if this occurs, and Vavana can laugh maniacally and monologue that the PCs are too late, that the real queen is ensuring that her rule will last forever. Muhahahahaha.

I imagine that it might take more than one incursion into the castle to accomplish all their goals, or at least a few days. When the dust settles on their siege of Castle Korvosa, the queen’s known allies are routed. The Gray Maidens patrolling the streets have no one to lead them and now will face a city in open rebellion to their authority. Cressida sets her plan in motion to reveal Neolandus, and Korvosa is once again beset by rebellion and riots. The PCs won’t likely be participating in this clean-up, however, because they will have discovered that the real Queen Ileosa has left the castle to travel west to the Sunken Queen, possibly with hints that she’s seeking immortality. If they didn’t find the map to the Sunken Queen in the castle, I’m sure there is an NPC who can supply its location.

Chapter 3: Legacy of Blood

Queen Ileosa’s plan to achieve immortality lies in a place called the Everdawn Pool, where she is to perform a ritual that will kill thousands of Korvosans in exchange for eternal youth. The module suggests setting a timer of 10 days once Castle Korvosa is cleared for her to accomplish her goals. I might again use a progress clock—something extreme like 10-12 segments—and each day ticks a segment.

The Mushfens is a wild, dangerous swamp and difficult to navigate, and the Sunken Queen is an ancient Thassilonian monument (read: small, four-level structure) built by Runelord Sorshen back when the area was fertile farmland. It’s now half-submerged in the marshy mess, tilted at a dramatic angle, and decayed by time and wet. Ileosa has charmed a tribe of boggards (frog-men), who guard the swamp but are easily dispatched by the PCs. What the boggards can do, however, is summon an enormous devilfish (kraken-like gargantuan beast) that lives in the waters named Beirawash, a creature they consider a living god.  

Once inside the Sunken Queen, the opposition facing the party includes more boggards (which I’ll likely drop or just narrate, since they’re no match for high-level heroes), an alien outsider guardian to the Everdawn Pool which Ileosa has promised freedom after her ritual, four more Erinyes devils, and an enchanted pool of blood that has formed into immortal ichor. While the PCs fight all these threats, Ileosa is in the heart of the structure, attuning herself to the Everdawn Pool and in a semi-state of trance.

When the party enters the chamber containing Ileosa and the Everdawn Pool, she shrieks in rage. From the blood of the pool rises seven figures: Six more simulacrum like the one in Castle Korvosa and “an enormous, diseased, serpentine dragon—a physical manifestation of Kazavon infused with the source of the greatest pain and blight the queen inflicted on the city: blood veil.” Whoah. Ileosa herself is a high-level spellcaster and the PCs will be worn down by the previous foes. So, this climactic ending encounter strikes me as a particularly difficult and deadly one. I suppose, though, if you’ve been teasing this enemy all AP, the first and last fight with the BBEG better be epic, right? Anyway, once the fight starts, I imagine Queen Ileosa monologuing to fill in any remaining gaps about her evil plans. Hopefully her death is a memorable one, with the crown containing the fangs of Kazavon clattering to the tilted floor, any remaining blood constructs exploding in a wash of blood, and the Everdawn Pool… well… [deep inhale]

Chapter 4: Conclusion

Something Paizo Adventure Paths love to do is insert a fight after the boss battle. I’m not sure why this plot device is so common, but it’s everywhere. Here it is on full display: As Queen Ileosa falls, the Everdawn Pool—which has been gathering energy from the ritual she’s been performing for literally days, if not weeks—explodes in wild energy. Suddenly an enormous skeletal arm of a dragon reaches out of the pool, dragging forth the literal recreation of Kazavon the dragon from the blood. Each round that passes, the dragon begins filling in more and more… muscles, organs, etc. The implication is that the evil dragon is now going to be granted immortality, not Ileosa! Meanwhile, the PCs are being battered by waves of magic and making saving throws (or whatever, depending on the system I’m using) against a variety of debilitating effects.

The module offers several specific spells the PCs can use to prevent Kazavon from fully manifesting. I don’t like leaving the outcome only to spellcasters, nor do I like providing such a narrow win condition. Instead, I’d allow the players to brainstorm something cinematic and epic that makes sense to them—maybe taking the crown and breaking it, or imploring a divine entity, or a clever use of magic, or even a PC sacrificing themselves to the pool—and roll with it. The goal for me would be to have the party narrowly avoid disaster, but my appetite for a party-wiping battle against an immortal dragon after they’ve won the boss fight is low. I want the PCs to succeed if they’ve made it this far, by doing something both epic and memorable.

Once this last threat has ended, the PCs have won. I’d probably have the Sunken Queen begin collapsing and, as the party escapes, sink fully beneath the swamp. The Everdawn Pool is no longer a usable artifact, and either the Crown of Fangs sinks as well, or they retrieve it and need to figure out what to do with it. The party won’t have Queen Ileosa’s body, but they’ll return to Korvosa as heroes of the city as the remaining nobles bring slow stability to the city.

There’s a fun Appendix in the Hardcover Edition that outlines plot seeds that might continue after the end of AP. Certainly there are a lot of open questions remaining: what happens to the Fangs of Kazavon, who rules Korvosa in the vacuum of power (maybe one of the PCs?), the outrage of the Red Mantis assassins guild, any Harrow or Shoanti prophecies, plus any villains that may have escaped throughout the campaign. All these ideas and more are fodder for homebrewed continuations of the story, jumping off points for a new campaign with new PCs, or narrated epilogues to the AP.

Deconstructed Crown of Fangs

Whew, what a ride. Though the end of the AP is a ton of high-level combat, it looks like a satisfying and fun end to an awesome campaign, and I made a surprisingly small amount of changes to the book!

Now that I’ve reached the end, what do I think of Curse of the Crimson Throne overall and how might I run it now that I’ve deconstructed each individual book? Stay tuned tomorrow for the seventh and final installment of this series, where I dive into those questions and more!

As always with my articles, please comment below or send me an email at jaycms@yahoo.com. I’m always eager to hear from GMs who have run this AP to know what they think of my edits and different choices they made.