Pathfinder Adventure Path: Shattered Star Part 6 - The Dead Heart of Xin

The conclusion of the Shattered Star AP is not a whimper, but a bang! Once the Sihedron is rebuilt, the ancient city of Xin rises. This results in a catastrophic flood and a battle with a mighty ancient servant of Runelord Sorshen. From there you go to the ancient capital of Thassilon. There you must battle many clockwork guardians, Xin's failed experiments, a graveknight rune giant, a mighty aboleth, the ghost of Xin, and finally the Clockwork Reliquary. This volume also includes a bestiary with 4 new monsters, and it includes an article on the seven runelords of sin, which is fascinating. This is a great volume if you enjoyed Rise of the Runelords.

Good adventure ending with the Runelords detailed! Lust is a bit typical, though.

...and in my humble opinion it's somewhat of a whimper. Perhaps I just expect too much. The final adventure in the series sees the adventurers (already 15th level when this adventure starts and, likely, 17th level, or even 18th, by the time they face the Clockwork Reliquary) assemble the Shatterred Star--which causes the long-lost city of Xin to rise from the ocean only miles from Magnimar. The adventureres must first save the population of Magnimar from the dangers posed by the massive city's re-emergence only miles from the harbor, and then must go to the city of Xin and investigate the ruins for the Pathfinder Society. Pretty obvious, pretty straight-forward. The city of Xin is mostly destroyed but the crystal fortress of the original ruler (Xin himself) still exists and poses a challenge for the characters, as not only does it still include functioning guardians (mostly clockwork-type creatures, a few bound monsters, and a couple of undead encounters) but also another investigator--and, on top of it all, it is haunted by the spirit of Xin himself. Few of the encounters are particularly complex (though they might be difficult in terms of raw combat power), the few NPC-types seem fairly typical, and I was continually struck by a sense that we've seen all this before (maybe not necessarily in a Pathfinder adventure, but somewhere else...). Ultimately I was much more entertained and interested by volumes 1-5 (or #61-65, if you are tracking the covers) than I was by the conclusion of this series. Additionally, the series "Light of a Distant Star" concludes in this volume. The "Continuing the Campaign" write-up is pretty good, actually, with excellent ideas for broadening and deepening, and of course furthering, the campaign arc.Crunch: 4 new monsters (all CR10 or above) and 7 new magic items (4 of which are minor or major artifacts).

I love the Paizo APs and this will make a useful addition for future gaming sessions when we finish Rise of the Runelords. Although that's taken 2 years and we're only half way through - but it's an investment anyway.