THE GEARS OF REVOLUTION adventure path
13 adventures from level 3 through to level 20
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Steam and soot darken the skies above the city of Flint, and winds sweeping across its majestic harbor blow the choking products of industrial forges into the fey rainforests that dot its knife-toothed mountains. Since the earliest ages when the people of Risur founded this city, they feared the capricious beings that hid in those fog-shrouded peaks, but now as the march of progress and the demands of national defense turn Flint into a garden for artifice and technology, the old faiths and rituals that kept the lurkers of the woods at bay are being abandoned.
The Unseen Court, the Great Hunt, and the many spirits of the land long ago conquered by Risur’s kings no longer receive tribute, but they cannot enter these new cities of steam and steel to demand their tithe. The impoverished workers who huddle in factory slums fear monsters of a different breed, shadowy children of this new urban labyrinth. Even their modern religions have no defenses against these fiends.
Times are turning. The skyseers – Risurs folk prophets since their homeland’s birth – witness omens in the starry wheels of heaven, and they warn that a new age is nigh. But what they cannot foresee, hidden beyond the steam and soot of the night sky, is the face of this coming era, the spirit of the age. The zeitgeist.
The GEARS OF REVOLUTION adventure path takes place in 500 AOV.
Before you start the GEARS OF REVOLUTION adventure path, be sure to download the free PLAYER’S GUIDE and CAMPAIGN GUIDE.
#1. THE Island at the axis of the world
In factories throughout the city of Flint, months of ceaseless toil by mages, engineers, and shipbuilders have finally concluded. Now well-wishers from across the nation of Risur have come to witness the launch of the world's mightiest vessel of war: the R.N.S. Coaltongue, impervious to spell and cannon and armed with fire that could slay even a dragon. On the docks, constables keep a close eye on celebrants and troublemakers; in the shadows, conspiracy and betrayal threaten this technological titan on its maiden voyage.
Meanwhile, on an island in the lush Yerasol Archipelago, enemy spies put their plans into motion, clouded with secrecy...
Level 3 | buy
#2. THE DYING SKYSEER
Summer smog conceals the skies over Flint, and the skyseers, once able to foretell the future in the wheeling heavens, are blind and discredited.
Unnatural tremors shake the city. Protesters brawl with police in the factory district. Fires burn in Flint's heart. An assassin flies on the wind. Foreign ships smuggle in magic arms, ready for a civil war. But the greatest threat is hidden beyond the sight of men.
When a woman is murdered in the Danoran consulate, the party's investigation threatens to unearth a conspiracy, and those in power move to silence all who might reveal them. Only with the guidance of an old dying prophet will the party have a chance to pierce the conspiracy's veil, and save Flint from a coming doom.
LEVEL 4 | BUY
#3. DIGGING FOR LIES
In the wake of a villain's defeat, his accomplices flee into the seedy underbelly of Flint. The party tracks down an arcanoscientist selling illegal arms and magic developed in labs owned by the fallen villain, and discovers a curious collection of ancient artifacts.
These primitive weapons contain powerful spells capable of conjuring alien monsters never seen in modern times. To unearth why shadowy forces are collecting these relics, the party travels into the High Bayou, lair of the dread fey titan called the Voice of Rot. There, beneath an ancient ziggurat, the party finds the remains of a doomed archaeological expedition, and learns that a powerful alien entity has escaped its ancient prison and entered this world. The party has tugged into view one thread of the conspiracy, but to reach its heart and see how deep the threat goes, they're going to have to dig.
Level 5 | BUY
#4. ALWAYS ON TIME
The famous Avery Coast Railroad thunders along its week-long journey through the grandest cities of civilization. Among its roster of international passengers travel stowaways and scoundrels, slavers and spies - and one shadowy figure, bearing an invention that will illuminate the world and cast it into darkness.
Riding undercover, agents from Risur have one week until this invention falls into the hands of a sinister conspiracy. Before then, they must suss out who they can trust, and who's out to stop them. But on a train full of liars, will they be able to solve the mystery in time?
LEVEL 6 | BUY
#5. CAULDRON BORN
A conspiracy has woven itself firmly into the dark underbelly of the city of Flint. The Royal Homeland Constabulary (RHC) has learned of its existence and knows it has a base beneath the haunted mountain named Cauldron Hill. Now at the king’s command it is time to rip this threat from its shadowy womb and thrust it into the light of day.
While they pursue that mission, two other forces are at work in Flint: a cult of dwarven assassins who want to disrupt a peace summit, and a rogue lord of the Unseen Court who seeks a war between man and fey. Either plot will spell disaster for Flint. Can the constables spare the time to stop them before the doom beneath Cauldron Hill is born?
Level 7 | BUY
#6. Revelations from the Mouth of a Madman
The mad gnome inventor Tinker Oddcog is a wanted man. The colossus he crafted has gone berserk, and while the Royal Homeland Constabulary wants to know how to stop it, the conspiracy he built for it wants him silenced.
Tinker has fled to Ber, a nation of savages trying to make themselves civilized. It minotaur ruler needs the gnome's inventions to keep his orc, gnoll, and lizardfolk rivals at bay, and he thinks it'd be a fun game to have the constables and conspiracy compete for first shot at their quarry. But there's another game afoot in Ber, and machinations at work only a madman can perceive.
LEVEL 9 | BUY
#7. SCHISM
On a bleak, remote isle, gathered villains plot the final stages of their grand design. This heavily guarded affair is the best chance to land a killing blow against the Obscurati, but to get close enough to strike, the constables will need an invitation. Fortunately, and old enemy of the party is having a bit of an identity crisis.
Alexander Grappa crafted the mind of the conspiracy's colossus, then was slain when he had second thoughts. But the crafty mage managed to transfer his consciousness into Leone Quital, who is now responsible for ferrying conspirators to the meeting's secret location. If the constables can help Grappa get control of his new body, he can get them into the conclave. But then the villains' goals are finally revealed, power will tempt, loyaties will fracture, and a schism might doom the world's last best hope.
Level 11 | BUY
#8. DIASPORA
Wherein the past may be best left forgotten!
The Great Malice. Five centuries ago the death of a goddess triggered widespread upheaval, setting the stage for the modern industrial revolution. But for the eladrin of Elfaivar, the tragedy left behind a crippled people who scattered across the world with little sense of common identity.
In the ruins of Elfaivar, the party must locate Kasvarina Varal, a founder of the Obscurati who has lost her memories. With the aid of an artifact that an manifest the past in physical form, they can retrace her steps across five hundred years, restore her identity while gaining her trust, and recover secrets that will reveal how to thwart the conspiracy's grand design.
Level 13 | BUY
#9. THE LAST STARRY SKY
A Mighty Hand Turns the Stars
The conspiracy known as the Obscurati prepares to assassinate the king of Risur and perform a grand ritual. Stars will fall from the heavens, and a new age will begin wherein all must obey. Only the party can avert this coming doomsday, but they are stranded across the looking glass.
In the realm of the fey - a bright reflection of reality known as the Dreaming - the murder of a beloved man has provoked a civil war. The party cannot make their way home on their own, and the Unseen Court, pledged as allies to Risur, will not lend aid until the mystery is resolved. Can the party find the killer, save the king, and free their homeland from the yoke of the Obscurati before the world witnesses its last starry sky?
LEVEL 15 | BUY
#10. godmind
An Age of Reason. An Age of Darkness.
The Obscurati have won. Across the world, peoples' minds turn to rationality and industriousness - ideals of Nicodemus, the conspiracy's founder. But even as the Ob form a world government, strange side effects of this Great Eclipse begin to arise.
Thoughts in crowds begin to link into great hiveminds, subsuming free will and even manifesting as monsters. Ancient titans long ago subdued by the ways of magic awaken and content for their land. And the sun and the stars themselves have vanished, save for an ominous nebula shaped like two crushing gears, which grows slowly closer day by day.
Only the nation of Risur resists the Ob's control, and its people look to the heroes for salvation. Will they be able to defend their homeland and thwart the Obscurati's plans to unify all civilization, before those efforts awakan an all-consuming horror: a Godmind?
Level 17 | BUY
#11. GORGED ON RUINS
The World is Falling Apart
After the stars fell and the sun vanished, a new world order arose, controlled by a group known as the Obscurati. Now four nations are poised to assault the party's homeland, Risur. The only hope to avoid defeat is to convince the invaders that they have been tricked, for it was the Ob who truly cast the world into darkness.
It will take a great show of heroism to make them listen. But in a mix of fortunes, the departure of those vast armies have left the invading nations vulnerable to a series of great disasters back home - doomsdays the party might be able to avert. A wintry apocalyptic cult slaughters and brings anarchy. Cities go mad with eerie paranoia. An entire religion puts itself on trial for the sins of its god.
This is how the world ends: not with a whimper, but with multiple bangs and a giant lava dragon birthed from an erupting volcano.
LEVEL 19 | BUY
#12. The Grinding Gears of Heaven
Things are falling apart. An attempt by the Obscurati conspiracy to create a more perfect world was sabotaged, and the world is descending into chaos. With mere months before the planet is devoured by the cosmic gears of the graveyard of the multiverse, the party undertakes an extraplanar expedition to find the means to fix the conspiracy's disastrous failure.
But there in the Gyre, at the center of oblivion, a primordial serpent known as the Voice of Rot has coiled itself around the physical manifestation of time itself, and it intends to drag the party's world to its destined destruction. The party must slay the rough beast if they wish to hold together their dying world so that tomorrow can be born.
Level 20 | BUY
#13. Avatar of Revolution
The World is Falling Apart
The mastermind Nicodemus tried to foster enlightenment and empathy, to create the best of all possible worlds. After centuries of pursuing his grand design, however, the age of reason he dreamed of tastes like ashes. Chance, choice, and recalcitrant champions have stymied him, and so to achieve 'peace' he has turned to supernatural compulsion, a tyranny to which none can object.
But as the grinding gears of the Gyre draw the world toward its oblivion, people of every nation, culture, and creed yearn for liberation. Nicodemus need only complete a ritual at Axis Island to impose a thousand years of perfect obedience, but civilization has seen and rejected the future he offers. Though it may be their doom, they choose revolution.