We’re over halfway through another Adventure Path, and the dwarves of Clan Firecask are ready to tell you about it!
As we’ve discussed so far, Sky King’s Tomb has already set itself apart from other Adventure Paths, and marathon three continued that trend. Before we go into detail, get caught up if you need to:
No project has had more guests than The Sky Scions, and this marathon added yet another new name. For over a decade now, we’ve shown off custom builds and terrain tailored to each Adventure Path. Looking back, it was at PaizoCon 2018 when we first met Morgan Rands of Black Bard Studios. We were gearing up for another marathon of The Azlant Odyssey at the time, and aquatic terrain was already presenting a challenge for us. We took Morgan’s business card and reached out: “Can you build an underwater art gallery?” The answer was a confident yes, and the rest was history. From precise scale versions of everything from the Lionfish Gallery to the iconic Gauntlight, the union of Black Bard Studios and Order of the Amber Die has brought our best tabletops to the Paizo blog over the years. Yet it wasn’t until this marathon—winter 2026—that Morgan flew from Oregon to New Jersey with a crate full of terrain as luggage and joined us at the table for the first time!
- Adventure: Cult of the Cave Worm
- Marathon Length: 59 hours, 40 min.
- Session Hours: 38 hours, 20 min.
During this adventure, our dwarven family continued their journey deep into the Darklands in search of the tomb of King Taargick, the Sky King. On the way, we had to venture into a fey city, get the information we needed, and then follow the everywhen map to the tomb. Easy! Just in case, though, we brought along a keg of Clan Firecask’s latest beer to help smooth over relations with the fey. The weather was bitterly cold outside, even for New Jersey, so we huddled in the studio and went on a grand tour of Nar-Voth, courtesy of author Scott D. Young!
Highlights from Cult of the Cave Worm:
□ The Court of Ether, a fey city in the Darklands, was so memorable that it even had our vets adding it and then checking it off their bucket lists. “Party till we die” as the redcaps sing, but people did actually die at the party we went to. From the music of Shpongle to Tricky, our GM dimmed the lights and turned these hours into a blur. Somewhere in the middle of it all, we looked over to see Renck Firecask, our venerable bard, serenading and becoming engaged to the fey queen herself. We got what we needed, but what happened in the Court stays in the Court.
□ Visit a fey city, and some of your party members might end up gambling. A satyr challenged us to a game of Elemental Stones, and it got sweaty. Redcap spectators demanded we ante our teeth: the player who takes first place wins a magic item and walks with a full smile. For second through fourth place, we’d leave behind the corresponding number of pearly whites. We played the actual game in-session, and the four competitors were separated by only eight total points. Kragmarr and Durghal have beards so thick you can’t see their teeth anyway. Halco Firecask won and walked away with an auspicious scepter. Let’s go!
□ For all those fans of classic dwarven scenes, we finally got our Mines of Moria moment. We were crossing the boundaries of the ancient dwarven kingdom of Tar Taargadth when morlocks descended upon us. At first, it was just a dozen, swiftly handled by axes in the dark with help from Kragmarr Firecask and his beastmaster archetype. Then we heard the strangest sound, and during the melee, we saw a morlock blow a horn made from an ancient shellfish. Another echoed its call. A dozen morlocks turned into two dozen, and then four! We took off using the Chase rules toward an ancient outpost, but we’ll continue that story below!
□ Weeks into the Darklands, when the caverns began to blend and our minds began to drift, we happened upon some ghouls hosting an elaborate meal. Seriously, they had flipped an old temple of Kabriri into a cozy lodge and welcomed us once they saw we brought the beer. Our bard’s binding muzzle spell shut down their feast, so despite already having a table full of fresh meat to activate their best abilities, we had the damage stacking faster than calories.
□ Black Bard Studios also helped carry our mission of making 2026 a year of firsts. In the photos, you’ll see the first terrain we’ve ever shown off that had ACTUAL water on it. We owe it to Morgan to say that it lasted through hours of play (including overnight, accidentally) and not a single drop leaked! Mentioned in one of the highlights above, we spent part of the marathon trying to outrun a morlock horde. The chase pushed us toward the outpost of Kheth Soldur, where we faced undead who were intelligent enough to rearm dwarven defenses against us, including the first fully functional rolling cylinder trap we’ve ever had on the table—that crashed into our minis!
We usually wait until the end of an Adventure Path to release data, but we decided to track some stats for this marathon only:
- Encounters: 31
- Natural 20s: 61
- Ability MVP: Shields of the spirit champion aura, 139 damage in a single round to a whole host of morlocks
- Highest single attack damage: 210 damage total (to five party members) from an elite fey cultist troop with a three-action wild swing, plus eight more damage to itself
- Highest single spell damage: Critical success with holy light against a pairaka div for 85 damage
- Amber Die: a signature 20-20, after 46 rolls
The Scions
Each marathon of this project features a legacy member of Order of the Amber Die who returns to the table with us, and this marathon saw the last of three founders from 1987: Christian Kelly. True story, Chris was the first player to ever sit across the screen from our GM, who at the time had a dictionary present to look up some of Gary Gygax’s chosen vocabulary. They played an adventure module as-written then started to add more players for their next session. Chris immediately stepped into a leadership role we coined “Player Captain.” You’ve heard a lot about this role in our blogs over the years, but Chris defined it from the beginning. What Chris understood, and tried to explain to new players, was that there were certain things only the GM could do (prep the adventure, for example). Therefore, everything a player could do, they should take off the GM’s plate. This would allow the GM to maximize their time spent preparing the adventure, and the whole group would benefit. Whether it’s the standard barrage of questions a GM gets from players before a session or just the food menu for game day, those can be handled by the Player Captain. The Player Captain essentially channels the voices of the players through a single mouthpiece to the GM, reducing load and allowing for more (and more efficient) play. The Player Captain role is a large part of what has enabled us to reach 171 published adventures played across thirty-nine years. Theodora is our current Player Captain, and she is the scion of what Chris created in 1987.
Character Deaths:
□ None. We debated about whether to say this or not: The Sky Scions has had our lowest overall death count of any project so far...
Best Quote from Marathon 3:
(after what happened with the lampad queen)
Salthrun Firecask: “We’re just leaving? She didn’t agree to postpone the wedding.”
Renck Firecask: “Well, she never asked me to marry her, so it’s an interesting relationship.”
Current Situation:
For better or worse, we became “Knights of the Court of Ether,” as bestowed by the fey queen herself. We used the title briefly, then took off for the hryngar city of Hagegaf with our magical map in hand. We also ended our marathon with one of the more unforgettable moments over the years, that we’ll preface with this: You don’t have to play an all-dwarven party in this adventure path. That being said, there have been some scenes just for us. In the ruins of Kheth Soldur, we encountered a deadly haunt—dwarves from our ancestors’ past—waiting to be relieved of their duty to hold the outpost’s stairs at any cost. But here we were, Clan Firecask, a Goldhilt clan no less, returning to what is ours once more! We proudly announced ourselves, and the four dwarven ghosts did so in return: Clan Grimmark, Clan Breakiron, Clan Stonefist, and CLAN FIRECASK!
More Content:
Brandon Gillam of Runehammer has been chronicling his experiences at our table during this project, as described in his most recent blog. In addition, our table was brought to life with the help of Blue Table Painting for the miniatures and Black Bard Studios for custom adventure-specific miniatures/terrain.
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