Way of the Wicked

Way of the Wicked is a six part adventure module, with a seventh book dedicated to adding content to the prior 6 books, intended for use with Pathfinder. Created by Gary McBride and Michael Clarke (with contributions by Jason Bulmahn to the 5th and 7th books) of Fire Mountain Games and released 2011-2014, Way of the Wicked differs from every other published adventure for a Dungeons & Dragons derivative in existence at the time of its publication (at least as far as the authors could find), by not only supporting evil characters (which many modules have done, to varying degrees of effort) but was made for them primarily and exclusively.

Talingarde is a large island (The books use England as an approximate size) where society flourishes under the wise noble House of Darius who a guided by the selfless church of the sun god Mithra. Corruption is exceedingly rare, the church ensures disease is contained, the people are united by their faith and bans on the faiths of the evil gods has rendered their worship virtually non-existant. That just can't do and one of the few remaining worshipers of the banned powers seeks the destruction of Talingarde's current government. Cardinal Adrastus Thorn, High Priest of Asmodeus in Talingarde has spent decades gathering supplies and forces to one day take over Talingarde and instill a puppet on its throne. However powerful Thorn is, he can't hope to survive if the entire might of Talingarde is unleashed upon him and so he operates from the shadows, recruiting agents to act in his place.

One day a group of hardened criminals is sent to Branderscar prison, well known as the most secure prison in the realm, and branded to await their execution (or be made to labor in the salt mines till they drop dead from the work). Thankfully for these prisoners, Branderscar was never particularly active and has gotten by on reputation alone for a long time. Lately the security is lax. With the lack of real threats the warden has not been particularly active in the day to day management of the prison; In the warden's place the corrupt Sergeant Tomas Blackerly has quietly toned down the number of guards and skimped on maintenance to embezzle the prison's funds for his own use. The prison is currently falling apart and heavily understaffed, with the remaining guards poorly motivated to the point the are often drunk on duty or distracted by gambling amongst themselves. With these event Thorn sees an opportunity to gain some new recruits and arranges for an agent to pass these prisoners a magic veil containing all the items they need to escape and form Thorn's "Ninth Knot" of agents. These criminals are the player characters.

Tropes used in Way of the Wicked include:

• And Now for Someone Completely Different: Book seven introduces a series of optional games called Minon Quest where the players take the role of the otherwise faceless, nameless minions of their normal player characters.
• Blood Sport: Gladiator fights against monsters exist as underground entertainment. Once the PCs take over Talingarde, they can make the games legal and public. Slave contestants are optional, but preferred.
• Deal with the Devil: As an evil campaign there are a few opportunities to make such a deal.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Grumblejack, a fiendish ogre and the only other prisoner when the player characters arrive at Branderscar, was intended as a Crutch Character of an ally for the initial jailbreak. The character quickly proved popular with players and was given expanded roles in each future book. Grumblejack winds up the only character to remain an ally to the PCs for all 6 books.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: This proves to be Thorn's undoing as he can't bring himself to kill the blood of the woman he loved despite his Paladinhood and tries (much to the detriment of his plan), not very successfully, to corrupt him instead. This harms his plan enough for the powers of hell to strip him of his title of high priest, meaning the PCs no longer have to worry about their contract to "do no harm" to "he who is called Cardinal Adrastus Thorn, High Priest of Asmodeus in Talingarde" as he no longer bears that title.
• Death by Childbirth: Used to explain the lack of a queen in Talingarde. This is actually a lie told to the public. The princess is actually a bastard the king had with a dragon.
• Evil Is Cool: If it wasn't cool, why would you play this?
• Evil Versus Evil: Described as one problem even the most successful evil campaigns fall into and as such the book takes care to primarily pit the PCs against good aligned enemies. That is not however to say that there are no fights against evil aligned foes within the adventure.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Another problem with evil campaigns the book notes is that player characters will eventually get into acts that the other players are disgusted by. To avoid this the GM is recommended to make such acts occur off screen.
• Follow the Leader: At least in part due to Way of the Wicked's incredible popularity for a third party adventure proving a market for such a thing, Paizo's official adventure path for 2016, Hell's Vengence, is an evil campaign.
• Leave No Survivors: An order to the player character for their mission in book 3. Given the presence of teleporting outsiders, the odds of success are so poor the climax of the book assumes they failed at this and have to flee an oncoming army.
• Magically-Binding Contract: The contract that forms the Ninth Knot (and presumably the other knots) that forces them to co-operate with each other and Thorn. Finding a loophole in it becomes important when your former boss turns against you.
• Mark of Shame: The player characters imprinted with a branding iron upon arrival at Branderscar, marking them as forsaken of Mithra. This complicates early infiltration missions. The brand is not unremovable however (indeed, it is perfectly mundane) and sufficently powerful healing magic can fix it, which the books assume any PC that wants to will have done.
• Mary Suetopia: Talingarde is this to emphasis the PCs evilness for destroying it.
• No Campaign for the Wicked: Averting this is the primary reason this adventure even exists.
• Properly Paranoid: Inquisitor Matthias Harkon is convinced failing to stop the PCs in book 2 will result in the war being lost for Talingarde. The book notes he's absolutely correct, even if he can't convince many others.
• Pimped-Out Dress: The princess owns an entire wardrobe of these. Unfortunately all marked with her seal and not really sellable though the players soon take over the kingdom, so it might be worth hanging on to them.
• Pragmatic Villainy: While this is certainly possible once the players take over Talingarde, the GM is told to encourage them to the other end of villainy.
• The Quisling: Several appear as allies to the PCs. This is particularly true when the PCs take over Talingarde and have a court full of them.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The module expects that revenge for imprisonment motivates the player characters on some level. The first module notes it's unlikely the player characters will spare Blackerly after the branding he gave them on their way in. It has proven pretty correct and horrible methods of death will be found in any campaign log where he doesn't die on his feet.
• Shout Out: One of the possible projects detailed in the final book for when the PCs are the rulers of Talingarde is to use permanent Teleportation Circle spells to set up trade routes. This is the premise of a famous thread discussing the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 rules known as the "Tippyverse".
• Spikes of Villainy: The module text references this when comparing how to handle evil PCs compared to good aligned ones.
• Supervillain Lair: The PCs manage one for the duration of the second book.
• Villain Protagonist: The entire point.
• We Buy Anything: The adventure uses the player character's status as wanted criminals fighting the government to avert this. The PCs frequently come across valuable items marked as personal or government property and thus impossible sell (most of the time) regardless of their disguise. Some of these items, such as the arms and armor of Branderscar's guards, still have their obvious uses even if they can't be sold.
• What Are You in For?: Encouraged in the opening to start characterization of the players and have them get to know one another.
• You All Meet in a Cell