The Witchwar Legacy

Adventure: "The Witchwar Legacy" by Greg A. Vaughan

Type: Dungeon/Cold

Run by: Laurent

Frequency: THIS ADVENTURE HAS NOW BEEN PLAYED THROUGH.

Location: Vague Connections, Nottingham

System: D&D/Pathfinder

Books: Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. Advanced Player's Guide.

Players: 6 players [FULL]

Party level: LV17

Adventure background:

The back-cover states:

The witch queens of Irrisen must abdicate their thrones every 100 years when their mother, Baba Yaga, places a new daughter on the throne. But one queen was unwilling to relinquish her rule, and led a doomed rebellion against the Mother of Witches. Afterward, Baba Yaga entombed her wayward daughter in an icy necropolis known as the Veil of Frozen Tears, along with a powerful artifact called the Torc of Kostchtchie, hiding them both far from mortal eyes. Now, almost 500 years later, the tomb has been found, and the race is on to plunder its treasures. Will the PCs follow Elvanna, the current queen of Irrisen, in her attempt to recover the Torc, or will they join forces with the demon lord Kostchtchie? What secrets does the Veil of Frozen Tears conceal? Can the PCs reclaim the lost artifact and keep it from those who also seek its power, or will they fall victim to the denizens of the tomb and end up as eternal guardians themselves?

Motivation:
A high level adventure to have a look at how ten level of standard prestige class, or simply high-level standard classes work.

Setting:
The world of Golarion ("Pathfinder Chronicles") from Paizo publishing.

The story so far:
The party has accepted a commission to recover the Torc of Kostchtchie from Queen Elvanna of Irrisen. 35,000 gp or equivalent in magical item per head is an enticing proposition. On the darker side of things, many a team has been sent to the Veil of Tears and none has returned. A Frost Giant encampment has been depopulated, and a poor White Dragon is no more. The party has now finished all the Giants that were left behind, thus never heard anything related to the backstory smile and discovered one way up the Veil of Tears only to decide to double-back and attempt to find another.
After bypassing traps and fighting more guardians, the party has found a strange cuckoo clock and the torture chamber where the last queen of Irrisen to defy Baba Yaga was made to witness the wrath of the Old Crone. The adventurers now believe they have the keys to have another look at that strange clock. The guardian of the Torc of Kostchtchie did not really play to its CR20, but the curse of the place made for some fun inter-party behaviour, turning into a match between four LV17 characters, one Sorcerer, one Druid and one Arcane Archer siding against a Fighter. Trap the soul help sort out the possession effect in the end.