The Slumbering Tsar Saga by Greg A. Vaughan is a role playing game supplement published by Frog God Games for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License with some parts being considered Open Game Content as a result. This is a compilation of all the previously released parts of the saga in one supplement.
The supplement is available as a PDF from RPGNow at the regular price of $89.99 but was purchased at the reduced price of $27. It can also be found in printed versions from sites such as Amazon. The PDF is the version reviewed.
This is a 951 page PDF. Two pages are the front and rear covers, two pages are blank, one page is the front matter, two pages are the Table of Contents, six pages are the Open Game License and eight pages are for Obituaries for characters. There are a number of full page titles for sections as well.
In the Foreword, the author explains how this adventure was originally inspired by a piece of the prologue from Rappan Athuk:
“Many hundreds of years ago, the forces of good allied to destroy the main Temple of Orcus in the ancient city of Tsar. With their temple in ruins, the surviving priests of this accursed demon-god fled the city with an army of enemies on their tail…”
The idea was pitched and, during the adventure’s development and writing, it turned into a substantial trilogy of adventures. However, after the first part was sent to China for printing, Wizards of the Coast announced the Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, which resulted in the d20 crash and Necromancer Games going on indefinite hiatus. This also resulted in the release of the Saga being delayed. Bill Webb then set up Frog God Games specifically to publish this in a serialised subscription form.
The Foreword is followed by the Author’s Note which notes that, when the Saga was originally published, only the original Bestiary was available for the Pathfinder game and therefore some D&D 3.x monster conversions in this supplement are different to the later official Paizo conversions.
The PDF is divided into three books, corresponding to the original three mega-adventures, but when the Saga was first released it was published in pieces, fourteen in total, so each book is further divided into smaller parts.
Book I: The Desolation covers the region surrounding the temple-city of Tsar, which is scarred by the battle that was fought between the Army of Light and the forces of Orcus.
Part 1: The Edge of Oblivion is not within the Desolation itself, and primarily focuses on The Camp, a small settlement on the edge of the Desolation which will likely be used as a base of operations by the characters. Just because it is used as a base does not make it a completely safe place to visit. There are a number of random events that can happen here, which will usually occur over several visits – characters are expected to come and go a number of times as they explore the region. This ends with an overview of the Desolation and of the Army of Light that fought here. This part starts with an introduction to the entire adventure, providing background (although more comes later in the book), adventure summary and hooks to get characters involved.
Part 2: The Ghosts of Victory starts describing the Desolation. The Desolation is essentially divided into four main regions, each of which starts with a map of the various points of interest, with this part describing two of them, The Ashen Waste and The Chaos Rift. The Ashen Waste is the most desolate region and is covered in powdery dust, a large constituent of which is from bones. The Chaos Rift is a huge crevasse that was the site of the original camp of the Army of Light before the followers of Orcus ripped the world open.
Part 3: The Western Front covers the other two of the four main areas, The Boiling Lands and The Dead Fields. The Boiling Lands are plagued by geysers and boiling pools of mud and or sulphur. The Dead Fields was the site of the main conventional fighting of the conflict. Finally, this section also covers The Crossroads, where the two main routes through the Desolation meet near the exact centre.
Each area of the Desolation has various fixed encounters, up to and including what are essentially small adventures and mini-dungeons, as well as random encounters. The encounters are both creatures and hazards and have differences for each area.
Book II: Temple-City of Orcus covers the temple-city of Tsar itself. Reminders of the battle fought can still be found here as well.
Part 1: The Tower of Weeping Sores covers the gates to the city, the walls and Kirish Durgaut, the fortress that defends the main gates. The fortress is a major construction that is covered in detail.
Part 2: The Lower City is the former slum area of the city when it was still fully inhabited. This is also covers the Pall Over Tsar, a hazy shroud of evil that covers the entire city, affects sunlight and various good-aligned abilities and can shift the alignment of those spending the night in the city towards Chaotic Evil, a problem that can make extended forays into the city dangerous.
Part 3: The Harrow Lanes is the former middle class area but this does not mean it was, or is, safe.
Part 4: The Crooked Tower is another major area that is covered in detail and is home to one of the major powers in the Tsar of the present, one who was also a power before the city’s abandonment. Said power decided to stay when the city was abandoned, and caused problems for the plans of the Disciples of Orcus as a result. This section ends with a substantial number of conversions of spells from Relics & Rituals and Relics & Rituals II, both from Sword & Sorcery Studios, from D&D 3.x to Pathfinder.
Part 5: Foundations of Infamy is an area home to another of the major powers in the city and is the upper area of the city, the highest terrace where the Citadel of Orcus used to stand.
Book III: The Hidden Citadel covers the citadel that will, by now, have been brought back from where it was sent.
This is a huge citadel in the shape of Orcus seated on a throne towering hundreds of feet over the city of Tsar – the wings are carved on the cliff itself and are not part of the citadel. The citadel has been missing since the time of the battle and it can only be entered after the characters complete the ritual needed to summon the citadel back. This book starts with some historical information that hasn’t been revealed so far on the history of Orcus, who used to be a rather different Demon Prince (in this setting anyway).
The citadel is essentially a substantial dungeon in a building. It is divided into different floors and then each floor is divided into different areas. The different parts correspond to the different physical locations in the figure of Orcus. There are a number of factions in the citadel, plus undead and independent players. Many of the latter two are the undead remnants of a group of knights from the Army of Light who entered the citadel prior to its disappearance, which entry did not go well for them. The various locations can be considered to be different levels of the dungeon.
Part 1: At the Feet of Orcus is the feet, and where the characters are most likely to enter.
Part 2: Echoes of Despair is the legs of the demon prince.
Part 3: The Throne of the Demon Prince covers the lap.
Part 4: In the Belly of the Beast covers the belly and chest. One of the areas here has a summoning device which, if activated, has a small, but quite possibly fatal, chance of summoning Orcus.
Part 5: The Mind of Chaos is the very top of the citadel, the shoulders, head and crown of Orcus, and naturally has some of the most dangerous creatures in it.
Part 6: Caverns of the Barrier is the final section of the adventure, the caverns under the citadel. The primary foes are black orogs who, except in overwhelming numbers, may not be a huge threat to characters who have managed to reach this level. These are the scene of the final confrontation of the adventure, but not with Orcus (the characters may have accidentally encountered Orcus earlier, in which case those particular characters may well be dead), and success will mean that characters will be able to stop Orcus’ plans to destroy the barrier preventing his return to the world for the foreseeable future. Given that Orcus has been planning for millennia, he is unlikely to stop in his designs though.
There are suggestions for continuing on afterwards, such as heading to Rappan Athuk to find out what happened to the Army of Light, becoming the new ruler(s) of Tsar, now that it is cleansed and re-establishing a paladin order or worship of a dead deity. Perhaps all of these.
There is supposed to be a bonus chapter, Sleeping Dogs, after this but it is missing.
New Monster Appendix describes the various new monsters from the adventure. There are actually only 23 new monsters, which is not many for an adventure of this size, and a few of these are unique.
Magic Items Appendix covers new magic items, most of which are unique and which includes a few minor artefacts.
Prestige Class Appendix has two prestige classes, Disciple of Orcus and Justicar of Muir. These have previously been described elsewhere but have been updated for Pathfinder here.
Miscellany Appendix has a miscellaneous bunch of things. The hierarchy of Tsar, the ecclesiastical hierarchy, a new bloodline, a couple of new feats and some more magic items. Most of the items are from either Relics & Rituals or Relics & Rituals II, with one updated OGL item.
Player Handouts Appendix has various handouts to give to players that are found throughout the adventure. Many of these are only referred to in the text when they are found, rather than being detailed, so a GM who wants to know what they say will need to check the appendix themselves.
Map Appendix has maps of the various locations.
The Slumbering Tsar Saga in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and, with it being getting on for 1,000 pages long, it really, really needed them, especially given the amount of times that parts of the book refer to other parts. The Table of Contents is not particularly thorough either, given the length of the book. Navigation is, as a consequence, really bad. A short PDF could have got away with a lack of bookmarks but one of this length cannot, especially given the number of times different sections are referred to, requiring the user to chop and change between sections. Anyone using the PDF should use a reader that allows the use of bookmarks, otherwise it will definitely need at least some parts printing out.
The text maintains a two column format and a number of minor errors in the text throughout, which is really only expected for a book of this size. There are various black and white illustrations and maps; some of the illustrations appear to be specific to Slumbering Tsar, given their subject matter (and quite often show characters coming off second-best in combat) whilst others, primarily monster images, would appear to have been reused, most likely from Tome of Horrors Complete.
Although Slumbering Tsar was originally released in parts, it would be hard to actually run the saga without access to other pieces – unless a GM wants to do things like say characters can’t leave the walls of Tsar for the lower city, due to lacking that part. So having all the parts available in a single book is useful.
This is set in what is now Frog God Games’ Lost Lands setting (previously referred to as the Necromancer World) and some of the references to the Army of Light will contain information or names that are familiar to readers of Rappan Athuk. It is not necessary to use the Saga in that setting though; it could be dropped into another fairly easily, in an out of the way place.
This is a really big adventure, far bigger than Paizo’s adventure paths as not only is the page count higher than the total seen in an adventure path, but only about half of an adventure path is the actual adventure whilst around two thirds of The Slumbering Tsar Saga is. The Saga has a lot of different smaller locations, ranging from mini-dungeon to decent module in size, before getting to the Citadel of Orcus, which is the size of a pretty large dungeon. Even with the sheer amount of content, there are plenty of options for a GM to expand the adventure if desired. For example, only a comparative handful of points of interest in Tsar are covered – and this is a city after all – and the Desolation is vast enough to drop other places in.
As mentioned in the Author’s Note, with the Pathfinder Bestiary being the only one in that series released when The Slumbering Tsar Saga was first published (there are references to Bestiary 2 in this version), it has as a consequence a lot of monsters taken from D&D 3.x supplements, such as the Creature Collection series. The Tome of Horrors Complete is also referenced. There are quite a few sidebars, covering such as various deities – who are usually referred to as from the original Bard’s Gate and are in general prevalent to the Lost Lands setting, even though many are fairly standard ones – and spells that have been converted from D&D 3.x, as well as magic items.
There are repeated warnings that the adventure is dangerous – which, like many Necromancer and Frog God supplements, it is – and that perhaps players should not use characters they are attached to and there are a number of NPCs who can be rescued or otherwise encountered who can then be used as replacement characters if desired. As such, this type of lethality – the ‘First Edition Feel’ – may not be suited to every group.
Even at full price, this is actually pretty decent value for money as, again referencing official Pathfinder adventure paths, the PDFs alone for these cost something like $60 to $90 for all six, less for older ones and more for the latest, and those have around 600 pages.
Running the adventure from the PDF is, however, going to be difficult. The lack of internal bookmarks and cross referencing means that much of the supplement will need printing out to make it easier to use, even before the handouts are considered, and there are a lot of pages in the Saga. Certainly, maps for any area being currently explored will likely need printing, as well as any material from other parts of the book that are referenced. Perhaps a PDF reader that allows the adding of user bookmarks could make this easier, and many do.
The Slumbering Tsar Saga is a massive, dangerous and decent value for money mega-adventure that is most ideally suited to fans of the older game, although those who prefer later editions can still enjoy it, and it can be found by clicking here.
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