SotM-4 · Pathfinder 2e

The City of Borrowed Lives

Book 4 of Sins of the Mirror — Envy

4–6 sessions · 2-level module at current APL

Twin cities on a canyon, sun and shadow, one bridge. — Narth-Above and Narth-Below
1. The noon bridge (A1) — Twenty minutes.
2. Above (A2) — Law as a wound.
3. Below — Nyx. The chorus.

Adventure background

Narth-Above sits in the sun. Narth-Below sits in the canyon’s blue shadow. They have been at war so long the crime is lost and only the comparison remains. Twenty minutes of noon each day, a bridge is legal. The rest of the time, stealing what you cannot stand to watch is patriotism.

Capabilities migrate. Voices, faces, reputations. Fairness is the mask. The wound is: why them, not me.

Faces of the Court

Show these at the table. The Court has faces; use them.

Living saint of evenness

Merridan the Redistributor

Wants. No one should have to watch what they cannot have.

Lever. They are often right about the wound and wrong about the surgery.

The stolen voice

Nyx

Wants. The voice back, without silencing the chorus.

Lever. They will accept a split. They will not accept being told to be grateful.

Narth-Above

Reeve Olan

Wants. The shadow-rim to admit it is lesser so the war can be a tutorial.

Lever. Law. He cannot survive being the one who has less.

Synopsis

Both rims hire the party as neutral steel. Neutrality is a joke. Nyx wants a stolen voice back without silencing the chorus that now sings with it. Merridan the Redistributor will even the world if it kills everyone a little. Each PC is shown a life they could have had at this table.

The conflict is whose victory they would poison if they could do it unseen — and whether they will.

Getting started

Run this book at the APL and player count on Your Table. Every DC, creature, gold piece, and XP award on this page is already filled for that table.

Suggested pacing: level once in the middle of Part 2 and once when the seal breaks. Listed XP is Pathfinder 2e per-PC encounter XP (a moderate fight is 80 XP each, not divided).

Do not skip the Inward Gaze at the climax. If you are short on time, cut a fight, not the looking.

If a PC names another PC in the first Gaze, the canyon hears. Do not skip that. Neutrality is already a joke; let them find out by physics (the twenty-minute bridge) rather than by lecture.

Treasure this book (~2 levels): 110 gp for the table

Permanent items: one item of level 1, one of level 1, 4 consumables of level 1

Part 1: Twenty minutes of noon

The bridge, both rims, a gift that was not theirs.

A1. The ceasefire bridge

Noon is a thin coin. For twenty minutes the canyon is one city. Then the shadow climbs the west wall like a mouth, and the bridge is again a crime.

Use the twenty minutes. If they linger, they pick a rim by physics.

Cutpurses here wear other people’s manners. A successful catch feels like arresting a friend.

DC 15 (standard) — Society to read which rim a courtesy belongs to
DC 15 (standard) — Athletics to finish the crossing before the light dies

Borrowed-face cutpurses

low · 60 XP each

They flee into the shadow-rim. Chasing is choosing a side.

Borrowed face × 2

standard 1

Humanoid

AC: 17
HP: 23
Perc: +7
Fort: +7
Ref: +10
Will: +4

Melee Strike +9, Damage 1d8+4

Ability DC 17

Once per fight, copy a PC’s skill bonus on one check or Strike.

Rim urchin × 3

minion -1

Humanoid, Minion

AC: 12
HP: 4
Perc: +5
Fort: +5
Ref: +8
Will: +2

Melee Strike +6, Damage 1d4+1

Ability DC 17

Treasure (minor): 6 gp.

A2. Above’s law

Reeve Olan has a math of suffering: Below steals because they are lesser. He is not entirely wrong about the stealing. He is wrong about the lesser.

He will hire them as neutral steel. Neutrality here means enforcing Above’s noon-rights after dark. If they accept, Below already knows who they are.

Give him one true grievance (a well, a stolen harvest, a child who came home with someone else’s manners) so he is not a cartoon. Then let the party meet Nyx.

A3. Nyx’s voice

Nyx wants a stolen voice back without silencing the chorus Below that now sings with it. Both things cannot be fully true. Try anyway.

DC 17 (hard) — Performance or Medicine to split a voice without breaking it

Part 2: Borrowed Glimpse

Lives they could have had. The Hollowed. Merridan’s evenness.

B1. A life at this table

Each PC sees a version of themselves that got the thing another PC has. It is not a vision-quest. It is a conversation with a person wearing their almost.

DC 17 (hard) — Will to stay in your own name

B2. The Hollowed

They have given too much away, or had it taken. Their faces are the correct shape. Their hands do not know what to hold. One of them looks at a PC the way a dry well looks at rain.

The Hollowed are not a zombie fight. They are what the canyon does to people who were used as spare parts. They will ask, politely, to be filled with a feat, a spell, a joke, a reputation.

Donating for the scene is a real cost — that PC cannot use the donated thing until dusk. Refusing is also allowed. Do not punish refusal with a gotcha TPK; punish it with a Hollowed who walks away still empty, which is worse to look at.

If a PC donates something they envied in another PC, note it. Merridan will call that fairness when you meet them.

Too much, given away

moderate · 80 XP each

If a PC donates a feat or a spell for the scene, that Hollowed becomes an ally until dusk.

Hollowed × 4

standard 1

Humanoid

AC: 17
HP: 23
Perc: +7
Fort: +7
Ref: +4
Will: +10

Melee Strike +9, Damage 1d8+4

Ability DC 17

They ask to be filled with whatever a PC has too much of. Refusing is a kindness and a cruelty.

B3. Merridan

Merridan’s eyes do not match. One was a gift. They smile like a scale coming to rest. “No one should have to watch,” they say. “Watching is already a theft.”

A living saint is dangerous. They will even a PC and an NPC in front of the party if allowed.

DC 20 (very hard) — Diplomacy or Religion to argue that difference is not theft

A capability that used to be a friend’s

severe · 120 XP each

Above and Below both claim the champion. The fight is a custody hearing.

Redistributed champion

elite 2

Humanoid

AC: 19
HP: 40
Perc: +11
Fort: +11
Ref: +8
Will: +5

Melee Strike +13, Damage 1d12+6

Ability DC 20

Uses a copied PC feat or spell (describe it). Beating them can return it — or you can keep it. Record that.

Rim militia × 4

minion -1

Humanoid, Minion

AC: 12
HP: 4
Perc: +5
Fort: +8
Ref: +5
Will: +2

Melee Strike +6, Damage 1d4+1

Ability DC 17

Treasure (standard): 14 gp.

Part 3: The great taking

A defining gift is about to be made fair.

C1. The planned Redistribution

Merridan will take a defining gift from the richer rim — or from a PC — and spread it until no one has enough to be envied.

Tell the table what “spread” looks like: Nyx’s voice in every mouth, a well that is everyone’s and therefore empty by Tuesday, a champion who can almost do what the fighter does.

Above will call the plan theft. Below will call delay theft. The party’s job is not to be fair. It is to decide whether fairness is the wound or the surgery.

C2. Fairness, unmasked

A canyon bridge half in sun, half in shadow. — A1. Twenty minutes of noon
A. The span — Choosing a direction is choosing a rim.
B. The light — When it dies, the war resumes.

Noon, again, but longer. Merridan stands at the mid-span with both rims watching. They are holding something that used to belong to the sunlit city — or to one of you. “No one should have to watch,” they say. “Watching is already a theft.”

The Redistribution is not a speech. It is a surgery in public. If they do nothing, a defining gift — Nyx’s remaining voice, a PC class feature for a scene, Above’s last unshared well — is spread until no one can use it.

The Inward Gaze is the fight. If a PC names whose victory they would poison and then does not do it, that is Reckoned even if Merridan still has Hit Points.

Killing Merridan makes relics: chips of evenness people will kill to wear. Converting them leaves an ally who still twitches when someone else is praised. Both are legal. Record which.

At this band (mortal): Militia and a saint. Swapping d20s is already enough.

Merridan the Redistributor

extreme · 160 XP each

Killing them makes relics. Converting them makes an ally who still twitches when someone else is praised.

Merridan

solo 3

Humanoid, Unique

AC: 21
HP: 54
Perc: +12
Fort: +9
Ref: +6
Will: +12

Melee Strike +15, Damage 1d12+8

Ability DC 22

Once per round, swap two creatures’ last d20 results. They call it fairness. At mythic band, they can swap a class feature for a scene.

Borrowed life × 3

standard 1

Incorporeal

AC: 17
HP: 23
Perc: +7
Fort: +7
Ref: +4
Will: +10

Melee Strike +9, Damage 1d8+4

Ability DC 17

Treasure (major): 20 gp plus a permanent item of level 1.

Conclusion

If hollowed, Merridan is a caution. If converted, they travel. If killed, Narth makes relics and the envy gets worse.

How this Court ends

Pick the ending the table actually reached. Victory breaks the Seal of Envy. Defeat and walking away do not. Then update the roster to the new levels.

Echoes to record

Who wished they were someone else?
Was a gift returned or kept?
Did noon last longer when they left?
Which rim thinks they were owned?

Bible notes for this Court

Working title: The City of Borrowed Lives

The Court: Narth, twin cities on either rim of a canyon

Seal: Envy

Suggested length: 4–6 sessions

Envy is the wound of comparison. It is not ambition. Ambition says I want that. Envy says I want you not to have it.

Core theme

You are not enough as you are. Someone else is the proof.

Narth has learned to steal what it cannot stand to watch: talent, reputation, the love that other people receive, even the ease in another person’s walk.

Main conflict

The twin cities — Narth-Above and Narth-Below — were once one people. A saint-thief called Merridan the Redistributor has made a religion of taking “unfair gifts” from those who have too much and giving them to those who ache.

At first it looks like justice. A singer with four octaves donates one. A paladin’s unshakeable faith is portioned out to the despairing. Then the taking does not stop. The originals become hollow. The recipients do not become whole; they become addicted to the next borrow.

Narth-Above calls this crime. Narth-Below calls it weather. Both are using the language to hurt the other.

The party will be asked to retrieve something that was stolen from someone they met in a previous Court — or from one of their own party, mid-book.

The conflict: can the characters bear another person’s good fortune without needing to poison it — and can they bear their own limits without stealing a self?

How this book forces the characters to look inward

Envy is the easiest sin to hide behind “fairness.” Let the PCs be right, sometimes, that a thing was unjustly distributed. Then show the acid under the righteousness.

Give each PC a Borrowed Glimpse: one session in which they see, with unbearable clarity, a life they could have had if they had been someone else at the table, or someone in their backstory.

The Inward Gaze:

Who do you secretly wish you were? Whose victory would you poison if you could do it without being seen?

If two PCs already compete (spotlight, damage, story), this book must go there with care, not cruelty. The goal is recognition, not a player-vs-player blow-up unless the table has asked for that heat.

The Court as a place

A canyon. Two skylines. Bridges that have been cut and recut. Markets of borrowed faces — veils that carry a stranger’s manner for a night. Children in Narth grow up bilingual in resentment.

At noon, when the sun hits both rims equally, there is a ceasefire. It lasts twenty minutes. People cry and do not know why.

Key faces

Merridan — living saint, tired eyes, genuinely believes they are easing pain. Has not noticed they no longer have a talent that was originally theirs.
High Reeve Olan (Above) — law as a dam against the canyon. Would rather the poor stay poor than the rich become empty. Calls this order.
Bridge-singer Nyx — had their voice taken and given to a chorus. They can still mouth the notes. They want the voice back and they do not want the chorus to go silent. This is the book’s moral knot.
The Hollowed — people who have been redistributed too many times. They follow the party, hoping to be filled with whatever the PCs have too much of.

Climax

A great Redistribution is planned: the taking of a legendary gift (a paladin’s grace, a city’s luck, a PC’s defining ability) to “heal the canyon.” The math of suffering will be presented as airtight.

The party can return what was stolen, smash the saint’s relic, join the Redistribution, or invent a third economy: people keeping what is theirs and still helping.

That third option should be hard. Envy does not yield to a speech. It yields to the ugly work of being glad for someone else.

Echoes to record

Was anything stolen from a PC? Was it returned?
Did the party side with Above, Below, or neither?
Is Merridan alive, hollow, or changed?
Who did a PC admit they envied?

Scaling

Low: stolen skills as temporary conditions; street reliquaries. Mid: identity theft as curse; fighting your own borrowed abilities used against you. High: the canyon itself is a wound in possibility; enemies wear the PCs’ reputations and the world believes them.