
Archives of Nethys

Archives of Nethys

Pathfinder RPG (1st Edition) Pathfinder RPG (2nd Edition) Starfinder RPG

Rules Index | GM Screen | Player's Guide
Pathfinder #190: The Choosing

The Harrow Court

Source Pathfinder #190: The Choosing pg. 69
The Harrowing Three may have created the Deck of Destiny, but their focus on using it to set the future in stone distracted them from understanding the true scope of their accomplishment. By infusing each of the deck's 54 cards with raw quintessence scraped from all corners of the Great Beyond, they had unwittingly planted the seeds that would eventually grow into the demiplane known as the Harrow Court.

It wasn't until the cards of the deck were scattered and became individual artifacts that the potential for the Harrow Court became possible. The more each card of the Deck of Destiny ached to return to the fold, the more the quintessence within them began to build power. When one card from each of the deck's six suits were reunited, that power reached a mystical critical mass, resulting in the spontaneous creation of the Harrow Court—an event realized, at first, only by a precious few: the PCs themselves.

In this Adventure Path, the Harrow Court serves as a home base for the PCs. Once they trigger the demiplane's creation, they'll continue to unlock expansions to the realm as they discover cards and “add” them to the Court, incarnating the card into the demiplane to alter its reality. While there's an implied order to the elements added to the demiplane (reflecting the order in which the cards are discovered during the adventure), which cards and what order they're brought to the Harrow Court is left entirely in the PCs' hands.

Into the Court

Source Pathfinder #190: The Choosing pg. 69
The easiest way to enter the Harrow Court is to use the Enter Harrow Court activity—indeed, this is the only way to enter the demiplane the first time, for the PCs' arrival in the Harrow Court actually finalizes the creation of the demiplane. The act of investing a card from the Deck of Destiny and then bringing that card into the Harrow Court automatically activates that card's incarnation effect on the demiplane as well (see Epitomes). After this initial investiture, that incarnation effect persists even if the card doesn't remain invested over the course of the adventure.

Before one can use the Enter the Harrow Court activity, six cards —one from each suit—must be brought together. At this point, only the PCs can use a card from the Deck of Destiny to Enter the Harrow Court, as the demiplane's formation is inexorably linked to their souls and fates.

Harrow Court Features

Source Pathfinder #190: The Choosing pg. 69
Once the Harrow Court has been created, it's possible for anyone to travel to the Harrow Court using spells such as plane shift or gate, but the newness of the plane and its obscurity means such methods are difficult. Traveling via plane shift, for example, requires the use of a tuning fork attuned to the Harrow Court. If the PCs wish to create such a tuning fork, they must succeed at a DC 30 Crafting check and expend 200 gp in raw materials. The check must be made while in the Harrow Court, after which the newly created focus can function for the casting of any plane shift spell to travel to the demiplane. Other methods to enter the Harrow Court exist—some of which the PCs may discover (or endure) as the Stolen Fate Adventure Path progresses (these methods are presented in the adventure text as they occur).

Once a character arrives in the Harrow Court, exit from the demiplane is possible via six portals found within Harrowheart or via plane traveling spells like plane shift. A character who arrives in the demiplane by using the Enter the Harrow Court activity can use that same activity to open a portal back to their initial point of entrance from the Material Plane. Certain card epitomes can provide additional options to exit the Harrow Court via this method, but until those cards are epitomized, using the Enter the Harrow Court activity only returns the traveler to their original point of departure from the previous plane.

Exploring the Harrow Court

Source Pathfinder #190: The Choosing pg. 70
The PCs can explore the demiplane as they wish, and can even make use of the demiplane as a place to rest, recover, and pursue Downtime activities. The map of Harrowheart provided here can be used to calculate travel times as needed when PCs pursue activities, particularly those tied to specific points of interest.

Harrowheart

Source Pathfinder #190: The Choosing pg. 70
Harrowheart is a sprawling complex featuring dozens of rooms—more than enough of each type to suffice for the PCs. No map of Harrowheart is provided. A PC can travel to any room in the castle within a few minutes. Feel free to create a map of the castle if you wish or allow your PCs to design one.

With the exception of the Grand Hall (of which there is always only one in Harrowheart), the total number of each of the following types of rooms is always equal to the number of PCs in the party. If this number changes as the campaign progresses, Harrowheart's layout changes as well when no one is looking. As the PCs grow the court by incarnating more cards, each of the rooms is increasingly attended by droves of simulacra servants ranging from cooks to valets and more, all eager and ready to ensure the player characters' visits to Harrowheart are as comfortable as possible.

Bedrooms: These chambers are a perfect place to rest and relax. They can be outfitted as recovery rooms as well, to provide places for long-term rest or other medical care as needed.

Dining Halls: These chambers range from sprawling rooms capable of hosting galas to intimate nooks for single dining. Meals provided by cooks in adjoining kitchens are filling but not overly flavorful. While the materials used to cook these meals vanish like all other materials if taken from Harrowheart, the sustenance they provide is real—a character who eats and drinks in one of the castle's dining halls remains full and sated, even if they immediately leave the demiplane after finishing their meal.

Grand Hall: The grand hall occupies the center of Harrowheart. This is where the PCs arrive when they use the Enter the Harrow Court activity. Several doors provide access to other parts of the castle, but the most significant features of the grand hall are the six looming alcoves along its northern wall. The six arches over the entrances to these alcoves are adorned with imagery associated with the six suits of the Harrow—hammers, keys, shields, tomes, stars, and crowns. These archways can be activated as portals to travel to points across Golarion where cards from the Deck of Destiny lie in wait—see Part 2 of this adventure for more details.

Training Rooms: The first time a training room is entered, it's empty, featuring only a single meditation mat lying on the center of the floor. A character who spends a minute meditating on the mat can adjust the room's contents to be a shrine, laboratory, library, dojo, garden, sparring hall, or any similar room that matches the themes of their class. The room thereafter can be used by any character of that class for the Retraining downtime activity. A character can adjust the room's contents to support a different class by meditating at the center of the room—provided the room isn't already in use.

Workshops: Harrowheart's workshops feature numerous tools and resources for creating a wide range of items, including magical items. The tools located in each workshop are of high quality and grant a +1 item bonus to any Crafting check made within. Raw materials must be provided by the crafter, of course, as no materials found within Harrowheart can exist outside the demiplane.

The Realm

Source Pathfinder #190: The Choosing pg. 71
Harrowheart is situated on a hill at the very center of the Harrow Court, surrounded by a small village in turn surrounded by farmlands and pastures. It's in this village that the simulacra who play the role of servants in Harrowheart “live,” and all the food and drink served in Harrowheart's dining halls come from the surrounding farmlands. Beyond these fertile plains lie scorching deserts, trackless swamps, a deep lake, and a sprawling forest. Surrounding them all is a range of looming mountains.

The PCs are free to explore as they see fit, and as they epitomize more cards, the options and activities they can pursue in these terrains increases, but until those options are epitomized, there's not much more to do in the wilds surrounding Harrowheart other than sightsee.

In order to pursue activities in these outlying terrains, a PC must travel to the required terrain. Resolve travel using Exploration Mode, and use the map of the Harrow Court on page 70 to calculate time spent traveling. Sometimes, a PC may find themselves having to spend the night outside Harrowheart's comforts. In these instances, the character must use Survival to Subsist. (As with the dining rooms, sustenance gathered while Subsisting is filling, even while the food itself cannot exist outside of the demiplane.) Each terrain entry below notes additional features a PC faces when traversing the terrain. The DC listed in parentheses after the terrain's name indicates the Survival DC to Subsist in that terrain.

Desert (DC 30): The desert is difficult terrain. Daytime temperatures are severe heat, while nighttime temperatures are mild cold.

Farmland (DC 10): Temperatures in the farmland are normal during day and night.

Forest (DC 25): The forest is difficult terrain. Temperatures are normal during day and night.

Lake (DC 25): Small boats and rafts are commonplace along the lake's shores. There's always an available watercraft within no more than a ten-minute walk along the water's edge. Temperatures here are normal during the day and mild cold at night.

Mountain (DC 35): The mountains are greater difficult terrain. Temperatures here are mild cold during the day and severe cold at night.

Swamp (DC 25): The swamp is greater difficult terrain. Temperatures here are mild heat during the day and normal at night.

Points of Interest

Source Pathfinder #190: The Choosing pg. 72
In each of the six terrains lie three points of interest; these are locations where certain epitomes manifest their associated activities. When the PCs epitomize such a card, they get to choose what point of interest in the appropriate terrain hosts that activity. Once this location is selected, it cannot be changed.

All points of interest are numbered, allowing you to track which ones are assigned to particular epitomes.

Epitomes

Source Pathfinder #190: The Choosing pg. 72
The defining characteristic of the Harrow Court are its epitomes—one for each card in the Deck of Destiny. Each of these epitomes helps to expand the demiplane by adding new opportunities to the realm. While the PCs themselves may experience the wonder and surprise at each new addition to the demiplane, the simulacra of the Harrow Court remember the new additions as if they had always been there, their memories updating and society adjusting as needed to incorporate the changes seamlessly.

Epitomes

As the PCs epitomize more cards, you'll need to track which epitomes manifest in the Harrow Court. One way to do this is to devote a Harrow deck to this task—when a card is epitomized, move it into a separate stack or collection from the rest of the cards. You can also use the map on page 70 of this volume, which includes spaces for the PCs track this information as they build the realm up with additional epitomes.

Activating an Epitome

Source Pathfinder #190: The Choosing pg. 72
A card's epitome activates immediately as soon as it arrives within the Harrow Court, as long as the card itself is invested. Likewise, if a PC invests a card while within the Harrow Court, its epitome activates automatically. Once a card's epitome activates, the player characters immediately become aware of those effects, regardless of where in the Harrow Court the epitome manifests. An epitome remains active forever (or at least, until the Harrow Court's destruction)—there's no way to reverse an epitome once it takes place, although at the GM's discretion, an effect like a wish can reverse a single epitome of the caster's choice.

Specific effects for each card's epitome are detailed in the Adventure Toolbox beginning on page 75. Epitome effects for cards discovered in the next two adventures will appear in Adventure Toolboxes for those adventures.