The Godsmouth Heresy:

• Author: Rob McCreary
• Publisher: Paizo Publishing
• Published: 2010 
• Pages: 32
• Price: $13,99 

The Godsmouth Heresy is a dungeon adventure for 1st level characters, written for the Pathfinder roleplaying game and compatible with the Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 ruleset.

The module was published by Paizo Publishing in 2010. The 32-page saddle stitched booklet contains The Godsmouth Heresy adventure, a new creature called a Rune Guardian, and an appendix detailing the Godsmouth Cathedral.

Art

By Pharasma, do I love this cover art by Craig Spearing! Check out his website, his art is off the charts! 

I love the action in the frame of the Vat Zombie bursting through the glass. The green of the alchemical fluid in contrast to the purple of Seoni’s spell. 

The pre-production cover art shows someone preaching to a hooded congregation while a sacrifice is about to be made. 

In comparison to the actual cover this looks a bit bland. 

However, I would have loved for this to be part of the story. More on that later! 

The interior art is a bit of a mix of what does and does not appeal to me. That even goes for items in one piece of art strangely enough. 

In the art of Valeros bursting through the door for example, I really like the depiction of the tengu, while I don’t like Valeros at all. The face grabs a lot of attention, maybe through the stark contrast of the light, and that’s exactly the part of it I don’t like. 

Of the Gonzalo Flores pieces I really like Seoni fighting the crawling hands. On the flipside the pose of the skeletal champion is just really weird. And how disturbing are the legs on that lustspawn??! Disturbing in a good way. That really creeped me out. 

My favorite piece is undoubtedly Kyra facing off against the Necrophidius. The way that that torch influences the rest of the piece is just amazing. 

Cartography

In my Master of the Fallen Fortress review I praised Jared Blando’s cartography for being clear and easily read. 

For this adventure Jared did the cartography for the Godsmouth Ossuary (the actual dungeon), and the Godsmouth Cathedral. 

I generally really enjoy how he ‘dresses’ his maps with the parchment backgrounds, and all the symbols. 

For the dungeon map though, those colored stones in the background really threw me off. 

I remember going to a medical centre for the yearly check-up in school and they had me stare at this book full of strange colors. Apparently those were color blindness tests and you were supposed to see letters or numbers hidden in there and I never did.

For some reason those colored stones made me think back of those tests.  

I have to say though, reading through the dungeon, the map really helps to clarify the level/height differences. That’s really well done. 

Look & Feel

As always the Paizo products are professionally designed and look great. 

The two-column layout is regularly interrupted with titles, read aloud section, stat blocks and art to form a cohesive unit and a great layouting job. 

Writing

When I read Rob McCreary’s Master of the Fallen Fortress, it fell a bit short of expectations. So I was curious to see what he would do if given a bigger dungeon. 

In case you are not aware, I’m not the biggest fan of dungeon adventures. Just saying that up front (kind of). 

This book references a lot of other books, mainly for monsters. One book, however, that I would absolutely recommend you read as well is City of Strangers. 

City of Strangers details the city of Kaer Maga, which is a very unusual location to explore. A really cool one though. I would love to play in a campaign centered around Kaer Maga! So much flavor! 

The references in The Godsmouth Heresy are partly towards explaining other areas of the dungeon. Because yes, the Godsmouth Ossuary is only a very small part of all that happens under Kaer Maga. 

At several points in the dungeon there are holes, stairs and pits that lead deeper underground. 

That’s great if GMs want to further explore the depths beneath Kaer Maga. It is however not necessarily clear to the players that they are not supposed to go there for this adventure. 

I really like the fact that the players are given a Chime of Opening with only 5 charges. The chime magically opens doors. However, it’s also needed to get back out of the dungeon the way they came in. 

That’s a really cool item to help the players but not too much that they can just go chiming all over the place. 

No worries. The author also provided 2 other ways out. So it’s not a Gygaxian dungeon. That’s positive. (going to lose street cred for that remark)

What I’m really confused about is the following however: the intro of the adventure speaks of a Thassilonian temple dedicated to Pharasma. 

So why is 90% of the temple dedicated to the Runelords then? And why did the runelords leave so many undead behind in a temple of a faith that’s not very undead-positive to say the least. 

The same goes for Kaer Maga. Why would the faithful of Pharasma tolerate a whole area of the city where undead are roaming the streets as manual labor?  

This is probably more a lack of Golarion lore on my part though. But I was actively wondering about this while reading the adventure. 

There are of course a few area’s that have me scratching my head again. That bald spot is getting bigger the more I read (anyone checked the news lately?).

This might be nitpicking but let’s take a look at the House of Lust. The text says “the guardian (a lustspawn) pursued them back to the House of Greed, but it was unable to get through their barricade”. 

But when the text describes the lustspawn a couple lines later it says “It pursues fleeing prey, but will not enter any of the other Houses”. 

Well if it won’t enter any of the Houses, why was it trying to break to the barricade to get into the House of Greed then? 

Then there’s the House of Envy which is an empty room. It is, however, sealed with an arcane lock and has a regular lock with a Disable Device difficulty of 40!

So the players try to get in, fail, use a charge of their chime (which I assume would open the door) and then discover an empty room. Is that semi-Gygaxian? 

The silliest has to be the mirroring rooms. There’s two rooms that are completely alike. The floor and walls look like mirrors. The glasslike material can’t be destroyed except if someone scratches it with a diamond. 

Why on earth would a player come up with that idea? 

When you spend some time in the one of the rooms it teleports you into the other room and your character gets mirrored. Basically if you were right-handed, now you’re left-handed. If you had a scar on your right cheek, now it’s on your left cheek. 

Will that perhaps get a chuckle from the players? Sure. Does if have any function in the story? None whatsoever. 

Why are these rooms here, you ask? No one knows. It literally says that in the book. They are pre-Thassilonean, even the Runelords had no clue. Euhm.

 

Encounters

The Rune Guardian

The Godsmouth Cathedral

The Godsmouth Heresy Story

GM Preparation

• Reading City of Strangers to get a good feel for Kaer Maga is invaluable. Even though the adventure doesn’t take place in the city, the module often refers to it, its factions, or locations much deeper underground which are explained in City of Strangers.
• The Godsmouth Ossuary has multiple pathways that lead deeper underground. Those locations deeper underground are left to the GM to flesh out, or the module refers you to City of Strangers. Be prepared for the fact that your players might go down a set of stairs to a place you don’t have any information on, nor have a map for. 

Critical Hit or Fumble?

For those who just want to skip straight to the ratings:

Pros

• Absolutely LOVE the story! 
• Lots of roleplaying and investigation opportunities
• Top notch cartography
• It’s not a dungeon hack scenario

Cons

• Sometimes refers to other books like the Bestiary and in one case to another Adventure Module

Product Rating Summary

Art

cartography

look & feel

writing

story

gm prep

Murder’s Mark is an amazing 1st level adventure for groups that enjoy investigating mysteries.

It’s relatively combat light and provides plenty of opportunities for roleplay.

The carnival provides a very fun atmosphere and I would highly recommend to make the most of exploring all the different tents and games in the early stages of the story.

At the same time the scenario also offers the opportunity to include the racial tensions between different ethnic groups which you can play up or down as much as your players are comfortable with.

Purchase The Godsmouth Heresy

Hardcopy

Crypt of the Everflame has been out of print for a while. Your best bet is to look for a copy on Amazon or perhaps on Ebay. 

Crypt of the Everflame pdf

As Paizo doesn’t sell their products through DriveThruRPG, your best bet to get hold of a pdf copy of the adventure is directly in the Paizo webshop. 

Also of interest

If you’re interested in fleshing out the region around Kassen, Lands of Conflict provides a detailed gazetteer and history of Nirmathas. 

If you want to continue the adventure, make sure to check out its sequel Masks of the Living God. 

City of Strangers (Kaer Maga)

Bestiary

bestiary 2

Tome of Horrors Revised (skull spider)

classic horrors revisited (gasburst zombie)

hungry are the dead (festrogs)

goblin snake (adventure path 1

advanced player’s guide

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