What Do I Know?I have never had the opportunity to look at the original Pharoah adventure. I have heard a vague bit about the plot, mainly because it is set in the Forgotten Realms. To clarify, it’s set in the Forgotten Realms as much as the Bloodstone adventures are set there, meaning the adventures were written without any connection to the setting, but when TSR acquired the Forgotten Realms, they were assigned their own locations.
The Raurin Desert, which is where this adventure is located in the Realms, is right next door to Mulhorand, which eventually became the Forgotten Realms analog of Egypt. Eventually that “like Egypt” was made more explicit, because the Mulan people were actually kidnapped from Earth by the Imaskari. It’s kind of a mess, especially since Ed Greenwood’s initial comment on Mulhorand was “it’s kind of like Stygia in the Conan stories, sort of Egyptian,” which translated into “totally Egyptian,” as opposed to Stygia in the Conan stories, which is vaguely Egyptian flavored with a lot of its own weird stuff thrown in.
Original Credits for Pharoah
Design and Development: Tracy and Laura Hickman
Editing: Curtis Smith
Cover Art: Jim Holloway
Artwork
There are fourteen pieces of art in this chapter. There are seven maps this time around, although some of the maps are of smaller locations rather than larger buildings or dungeon complexes. There are three character portraits, and three scenes from the adventure, as well as the picture of the doorway that leads to this adventure on the Infinite Staircase.
The Framing Device
If the adventure is used as part of an ongoing story with Nafas, the wish that Nafas needs the PCs to help him fulfill is the wish of Amun Sa, hoping to repair that damage he did in life. If you aren’t using that framing device, the hooks suggested include having the PCs face exile into Rairun as a punishment for something, leading to their encounter with Amun Sa. The other hook just directly ties the PCs to the group working at the site of the tomb, looking to restore the River Athis.
It’s already got a home in Faerun, but the suggested additional locations include locations in Dragonlance (which is interesting, given that the adventure was written by Tracy Hickman), Eberron, and Greyhawk. Essentially, look for the biggest stretch of desert and put it there. As far as I know, canonically the Athis was never restored on Faerun, and that feels like a potentially major setting development, suddenly having a new river appearing in a desert region.
Adventure Overview
I know you’re thirsting for more content, but if you’re planning on playing in this adventure, you may want to let the current carry you away, because we’re going to be getting into some spoilers.
Pharoah doesn’t waste any time, because the opening of the adventure jumps straight to the ghost of Amun Sa. He shows up and asks the PCs to help him reverse a curse that he brought down upon the land. Amun Sa conquered a neighboring land, while facing an uprising in his own land, but his insurance policy was to link his life to the life of the Athis River. If he was killed, the river would dry up.
That apparently wasn’t the deterrent he was hoping it would be, and when he takes a spear to the chest, the river dries up, but his soul is barred from entering the afterlife by the God of Death, cursing him to wander the Desert of Desolation until a mortal recovers the Staff of Ruling and the Star-Gem of Mo-Pelar, which will cause the Athis to flow once more. He wants the PCs to head to the tomb and help him with this task.
Now, if you don’t want the PCs to start in medias res, there is some guidance about how hot the desert gets for how long, and where to find the rules for that, as well as an encounter table. The encounters are framed as “monster doing X,” which I prefer, although some of the creatures are just noted as setting up an ambush.
At the tomb, there are already some people working on restoring the location. Unfortunately, they haven’t gotten as far as they would like, because the experts they brought with them got eaten by a purple worm. They would appreciate the help exploring that tomb and finding out what they need to do to restore the river.
Inside the pyramid, various sections still contain the waters of the Athis, which can remove exhaustion and poisons once per 24 hours per person drinking from it. The tomb is also warded against teleportation, or spells that alter the stone of the tomb. I’m not always convinced that its best practices that a dungeon complex takes away toys that the PCs have, but it doesn’t feel too heavy handed here, especially given that gods are involved in the curse.
The dungeon itself is separated into the following sections:
- The False Tomb
- The Maze of Mists
- Halls of the Upper Priesthood
- Gauntlet
- Tomb of Amun Sa
I’m not going to do a room-to-room description. This is an early edition adventure, with lots of traps, but not, you know, like Tomb of Horrors traps. Most of the creatures encountered are elementals, undead and fiends. There are several groups of NPCs that the PCs can interact with, including a group of bandits lost in the tomb, a sphinx that may eat them, but only if they can’t handle her riddle, and later on, the survivor of a doomed adventuring company and a quirky gnome explorer.
The Maze of Mists is the largest part of the dungeon, and I’m not really thrilled with the mists themselves. The DM is instructed to make it hard for the PCs to know where they are going and where they have been. The mist barely parts for them at all. I don’t like this. I don’t know how to not tell my PCs where they are going in a manner that doesn’t feel adversarial.
The Halls of the Upper Priesthood can be accessed by tracing the flow of the Athis up to where its flowing from, but there is also a teleporter outside of the maze. The priests were trying to reverse the curse, and the teleporter has an illusion of a flame consuming whatever is placed on it. The people used to think they were sacrificing food and goods to the gods, but it’s actually teleporting things to the Halls. If the PCs figure this out, they teleport straight to the Halls, cutting out the Maze of Mists.
At this point, I should mention that one of the story-based milestones is escaping the Maze. While it would feel really rushed if the PCs figure out the teleporter early on, I think if they teleport to the Halls of the Upper Priesthood, I would consider that escaping the Maze. But that’s just my thoughts on the matter.
The two NPCs that the adventurers can meet give them some important information. There is an undead high priest up here, and he survives being destroyed as long as his heart survives, which one of the NPCs can point them towards. Nafik is kind of a cross between a mummy and a lich, and when you confront him, there is a really cool giant construct arm that tries to swat the PCs during the fight.
If the PCs take care of Nafik, they can participate in the Trial of Truth which is almost 98% assured with end up causing someone at the table to quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail because of how it’s phrased. This does lead to a cool sequence where the PCs ride a waterspout, discover a chamber that teleports them 10,000 feet above the tomb to recover the pharaoh’s gem. Once they come back from their stratospheric sojourn, they can enter the actual tomb and retrieve the staff from the top of the sarcophagus. Amun Sa tells them that they can have any treasure they find, teleports them back to the entrance, and they see the Athis river flowing out of the pyramid once again.
Thoughts on Chapter 5: Pharoah
I should note up front that the adventure does pull on the D&D trope of “people from somewhere else save a culture they encounter,” rather than having adventurers from that culture engage with the adventure, although some of the hooks allow for local characters. I really like that there is a recovery team at the site, both to make the pyramid feel a little less isolated, and to make sure the locals are actively involved in the restoration.
It is kind of funny to me that the people working on the restoration ask the PCs not to take anything culturally relevant, even though Amun Sa told them they could have everything, but the Staff of Ruling seems like it’s pretty culturally relevant. The last big prize the PCs get is the first one they need to give up. If you’re using this as part of Quests from the Infinite Staircase, it’s probably pretty easy for Nafas to give them an item that works the same way, if your players are really attached to it.
I really wish I liked the Maze of Mists, but I just don’t like how it’s framed. I would be much happier if the PCs just had to make a save or a check occasionally to suffer something that reminds them they can’t see that far, without making sure they can’t see ahead or behind them. This advice also kind of sucks, because one of the conventions of 5e is that if someone is saying that they are mapping in the party, they can always retrace their way back out of a dungeon.
There are some great set pieces in this adventure. I love the visual of the PCs looking down 10,000 feet to the pyramid, and the giant hand slapping them around while they fight the undead priest is a neat complication for a fight, even though technically the PCs can just beat the hell out of the hand like they could another monster. The potential 10,000-foot drop illustrates a bit of a glaring issue with D&D falling rules, in that you can fall 10,000 feet, and take 20d6 damage, which average 70 hit points. But that’s not this adventure’s fault, it’s the assumption that there has to be a falling damage cap based on terminal velocity.
While The Lost City definitely felt like an older edition adventure in places, I feel like this is the first one that pulls forward an affectation from a previous edition that detracts from the adventure. I’m going to be thinking over how to do something with the mist that doesn’t just keep the PCs from finding what they need to do in the tomb.
If you would like to further delve into the Desert of Desolation, and you want to contribute to my RPG buying habits, you could use the affiliate links below. Thank you!
- I3 Pharoah
- I4 Oasis of the White Palm
- I5 Lost Tomb of Martek
- Desert of Desolation Bundle
- I3-5 Desert of Desolation (1e)
#DD #DD5e #DesertOfDesolation #DungeonsDragons #DungeonsDragons5e #Pharoah #QuestsFromTheInfiniteStaircase #TalesFromTheInfiniteStaircase