Finding a legendary tomb requires tracking an equally legendary cave worm said to dwell there. As the adventurers set out from Highhelm, they must brave the Darklands’ dangers, navigate a treacherous fey city, and recover the relic that retraces the cave worm’s path. Yet in doing so, they learn of nefarious rivals who also seek the tomb—rivals the adventurers might stop by infiltrating an unforgiving underground metropolis.
Cult of the Cave Worm is a Pathfinder adventure for four 5th-level characters, continuing the Sky King’s Tomb Adventure Path, a three-part monthly campaign in which a group of adventurers travel deep underground to discover a legendary dwarven king’s tomb, seek subterranean treasures, and heal millennia-old injustices—all while stopping an ambitious villain from weaponizing those same discoveries. This adventure also includes a study of cave worm ecology, a gazetteer of the underground dwarven city of Hagegraf, potent relics, and several monsters to threaten underground explorers.
Each monthly full-color softcover Pathfinder Adventure Path volume contains an in-depth adventure scenario, stats for several new monsters, and support articles meant to give Game Masters additional material to expand their campaign. Pathfinder Adventure Path volumes use the Open Game License and work with both the Pathfinder RPG and the world’s oldest fantasy RPG.
Written by: Scott D. Young.
ISBN-13: 978-1-64078-534-2
The Sky King's Tomb Adventure Path is sanctioned for use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. The rules for running this Adventure Path and Chronicle Sheets are available as a free download (833 KB PDF).
Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:
Our group has really enjoyed this AP so far, especially Cult of the Cave Worm. It's presented a lot of roleplay opportunities and a healthy amount of combat encounters mixed in. It feels like a spiraling romp through a Darkland's Wonderland with fun twists at every corner. My only qualms with the product are that there are a few inconsistencies that you'll have to tweak when presenting. As well as a few areas that may require extra prep or may require theater of the mind. We are running this on Foundry which does include bonus maps, which helps. The players are loving it and very excited to see where the next tunnel leads.
I was torn between giving this one 2 stars because of one huge glaring problem and 4 stars because it delivers well on the central premise of the AP, so I've settled for 3 stars as a compromise. Let's get the huge glaring problem out of the way first: this book has *a lot* of combat encounters for which no battlemaps are provided. This is, frankly, inexcusable in something that purports to be a ready-to-run adventure. There are nine potential combat encounters described in the first chapter; a map is provided for only one of them. Pathfinder 2 is a very combat-focused system and the AP is written with plenty of combat encounters; surely you can ditch some of the extraneous background lore to create space for things that are essential for those combat encounters to be run!
With that said, the good stuff: you get a fun trek through different parts of the Darklands with lots of good RP opportunities, visiting a twisted fey settlement, a couple of neat side dungeons and travel encounters, and a hryngar/duergar city. The BBEG is introduced, lots of stuff happens, and it's all nicely connected to the overarching plot and themes of the AP.
After running Extinction Curse and seeing that cover art, I hope the whole book is not just Xul'Gaths :)
I wouldn’t worry too much about a placeholder cover. They often have very little to do with the final AP - I remember one recently had a Hellknight despite none featuring in the book when it released.
And now I'm wondering: is the cover character going to be a Drow, or are we going to get our first glimpse at the Ayindelar?
Based on the writeup in book 1, she seems to be a ** spoiler omitted **
This guess seems to be correct, though I can't find the description of the front cover so as to be certain. The illustration on page 13 seems pretty clear though.
When can we expect a new refreshed age of omens book covering the Dark Lands, looks like most of the resources i see are for 1e. it would be great to see it get a remake.
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
There will be a back matter section in book three of this AP. A full hardcover is not yet on the horizon and they can't talk about anything they haven't officially announced yet.
There are more map issues in this book, following the big mix-up in book 1:
1. The Darklands map in book 2 has Rolgrimmdur completely in the wrong location. It's supposed to be about 50 miles southwest of Highhelm. On the map it's about 20 miles NW, and somewhere the PCs go right past!
2. The City of the Snake Queen map has two areas marked H11, and none marked H9. The larger room should be H9, while the H11 on the stairs should be at the entry to the tunnel exit to the south.
3. Some of the location descriptions in the text are missing their map markers or 'event' notation. 'Crossroads' should be 'I. Crossroads', while 'All that Glitters' is presumably an Event that GMs can place anywhere, since it has no map marker (though I have a suspicion it's meant to be at F on the Darklands map, and the Ghoulish Gourmands are meant to be somewhere further along the way...).
Huh. This has both review by Tan Ripper and Ripper Tan ^_^; Are those same person or not because wow huh? ._.;
Well, it certainly seems to be the same person, just with different accounts:
* Rip Tanner's last review & forum interaction (e.g. favorites) was at the beginning of October 2023; after that, nothing.
* Tan Ripper's first review & forum interaction (e.g. favorites) is from October 5th 2023; the account doesn't seem to've existed while Rip Tanner's account was active.
The MO of the both accounts is very similar, too.
This is something perhaps only the forum monitor(s) can look into & verify.
