In the Pantheon Rising Adventure Path, you and your friends assume the roles of wanted criminals who must operate outside the law to earn their fortunes and freedom. Your ultimate goal is twofold: clear your name, and also seek revenge against the villain responsible for your ruined reputation.

Read on to learn more about the implications of your outlaw status, the nemeses responsible for your infamy, and the upcoming job that promises to help you get revenge.

At the beginning of this Adventure Path, your character is presumed to be an outlaw—a notorious roughneck, wanted renegade, or wrongly accused runaway—currently at large and charged by the city of Alkenstar with breaking one, two, or a dozen laws. The crime of which you’ve been accused might be petty (such as trespassing, picking pockets, or breaking and entering), or it might be grand (high treason, prison break, or murder), or it might land somewhere between these two extremes. You might have committed the crime with full knowledge of your misdeed, or perhaps you believed you were in the right or had no other option. Maybe you didn’t do anything wrong at all, and the entire matter is a grave understanding or a setup. Whatever the specifics, you’ve caught the attention of Alkenstar’s organized guard force, the shieldmarshals.

Now, to retain your freedom and eventually clear your name, you’ll need to stay one step ahead of the law by operating outside of it. This means that you must disguise yourself before appearing in public, you’d do well to avoid drawing undue attention toward yourself, and any allies you have are either wanted criminals as well or aid you only after thinking long and hard about whether to do so. No one in polite society dares to be seen by your side, and your opportunities for honest work are slim to none.

How did you get yourself in this predicament? The specific details of your alleged wrongdoing are up to you to decide. For some inspiration and potential ideas to help you build your character’s backstory, see the new Backgrounds introduced in this AP. These backgrounds also provide you with an important hook: the faction of the betrayer responsible for your newly acquired criminal reputation.

Even if your character’s misdeeds were bound to catch up to them, the bulk of the blame for your character’s ill fame rests firmly on the shoulders of one of Alkenstar's numerous factions. Two such factions are epitomized by the notoriously corrupt Deputy Shieldmarshal Anjelique Loveless or the infamous business mogul Ambrost Mugland.

No matter who wronged your character, it’s an open secret in Alkenstar that Loveless and Mugland are in league with one another, each using their particular realm of influence to scratch the other’s back. Though this makes them nearly impervious to the forces of law and order—few with the power to do so are brave enough to take the pair to task—their alliance is useful because it expands your character's pool of potential allies. After all, there's a famous saying in Alkenstar: “A bullet for my enemy aims as true in any gun.”

In the days immediately preceding the beginning of this Adventure Path, your character received word of lucrative job opportunity. Apparently, a mysterious job broker is looking for a party of outlaws to rob a bank called the Gold Tank Reserve in Ferrous Quarter.

The employer is Foebe Dunsmith, a tavern proprietor and barkeep much beloved by the rough and rowdy clientele of her storied watering hole, the Bullet & Barrel Saloon. Dunsmith’s promised payment for the heist might be tantalizing, depending on how hard up your character is. More importantly, though, is the fact that the Gold Tank is owned by none other than Ambrost Mugland, and some of the gold that flows through it eventually finds its ways into the pockets of Anjelique Loveless and her league of crooked shieldmarshals.

With the goal of hitting your nemesis where it hurts most—the coin purse—you’ve decided to take up Dunsmith on her job offer. To pull off such an audacious stunt, you’ll be working alongside a handful of other outlaws who also bear grudges against Mugland or Loveless. If you’ve any hopes of succeeding at all, you’ll need to befriend these fellow felons and coordinate your tactics, at least until you’ve gotten your sweet revenge.