I’ll preface this review by stating that I have only read the Ruby Phoenix adventure path as research for my China RPG endeavor. I have NOT played through the campaign as a DM or as a player. If you’re interested in playing Ruby Phoenix yourself, I will be giving some spoilers for the campaign. The more notable spoilers are hidden, so if you’d like to stay spoiler-free, avoid those sections.
Part 3: King of the Mountain
King of the Mountain is a fun adventure and despite being outside of the tournament concept it still feels strongly connected to the events in the previous modules. After the disaster at the end of the official tournament two competition teams have gone missing along with Hao Jin. A winner can’t be declared unless she’s found, so if the PCs want their prize they have to go bring Hao Jin back from wherever she’s gone. Fortunately, the Empress of Goka has a couple Hao Jin tracking devices. She hands them out to the remaining teams to go find the missing sorceress.
The teams quickly discover that Hao Jin is trapped on some floating island in the sky. Unfortunately they can’t reach it without divine level wish magic ritual due to some spatial warping effect. The PCs find all the pieces they need for the divine ritual. At each piece they are accompanied by one of the other tournament teams. Instead of competing, they are now working together to rescue Hao Jin. After the ritual is complete each of the teams has a little speech to give about their development alongside the PCs and each friendly team grants the PCs a bonus in the final section of the adventure.
With the ritual done the PCs are able to go to the floating island. The adventure’s conclusion deserves another spoiler warning, so take care before reading onwards!
SPOILER SPOILER
Immediately upon arrival they meet the true villain of the adventure path, Syndara the Sculptor. Syndara was a fellow colleague of Hao Jin’s. She suspected he was becoming an evil guy. Before he did anything super bad, she imprisoned him in a dimensionsl jail with an accelerated time stream. Syndara spent 300,000 years alone in a golden cage. During the eons his mind was consumed by one thing, revenge against Hao Jin. And… I think he’s justified. There must be some PCs that would side with Syndara when the whole story is revealed.
Syndara reveals that he has recreated Hao Jin’s Ruby Phoenix Tournament. First, the PCs must replay the qualifying round of Danger Island by gathering seven pieces of a conch shell. Similar combats abound. A personal favorite of mine was an out of control dance party that the PCs have to stop before the mosh pit destroys them. Once the conch pieces are collected the PCs can blow the conch to open the way to the final tournament.
In the final rounds of the fake tournament the PCs face some familiar characters. They first fight the good guy underdogs of the tournament, Tino’s Toughest. Only Syndara has also crossed them with monsters making them into horrible hybrid creatures. Next round is against the evil Lightkeepers who have received various powerups to make them a worthy challenge for a 20th level party of PCs. And of course the final round is against Syndara himself. Syndara’s combat reminds me a bit of the Train Man from the Matrix sequels. “I built this place. Down here, I make the rules. Down here, I make the threats. Down here, I’m god.”
After the final battle the PCs are returned to the real world along with Hao Jin. The host city receives them with much rejoicing and Hao Jin offers the PCs their long awaited prize for winning the Ruby Phoenix Tournament. Woohoo!
Final Thoughts
I rather liked the Fists of the Ruby Phoenix adventure path. In the context of a tournament every fight feels like it has narrative significance. With a point system for Despair on Danger Island and a loser’s bracket in Ready? Fight! the PCs have opportunities to have forward and backward progression as the tournament continues. There’s tons of nooks and crannies to explore for extra treasure. There’s some well thought out social encounters and skill usages. The combat encounters are top notch and filled with spectacle. The descriptions for the final battle really feel like the players are fighting a god.
The main flaw with Fists of the Ruby Phoenix from my perspective is the sharp left turn the plot takes after the main tournament arc is concluded. I think it works well, but I could also see a GM deciding they didn’t like that part and just cutting it. I think the adventure path needed some more blatant foreshadowing of what was going on in the first half to reduce the metaphorical whiplash. Easy enough to add that in if a GM wishes and I just might do so if I get the chance to run Fists of the Ruby Phoenix.
Reading through the adventure path also exposed some issues it has in my hunt for a fun Chinese adventure. The host city, Goka, is an analog for Macau, not China proper. Close enough I suppose. It’s not like a tournament plot is going to be that different in Macau compared to Beijing. The real problem though is that Fists of the Ruby Phoenix is an adventure path that starts at 11th level. Pathfinder 2e is about as complicated as it gets for RPG systems and I have little confidence that my players or myself would be able to adequately handle something that complex without falling flat. But as I noted before, I could run Seasons of Ghosts as a warmup and if we’re still liking those characters and the system we could move on to Fists of the Ruby Phoenix. There’s no wuxing but it has all the other elements of a great martial arts story.
If you’d like to take a look or play Fists of the Ruby Phoenix yourself you can check it out at Paizo’s website.
GoCorral 
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