Encompassing both tragic and evil spectres, this is a ghost story that delivers all the traditional elements of Western lore. Unique magic items and foes make this a treat. As in his Osirion adventures, Kortes delivers fascinating magic items and a challenging adventure strong in flavour.

This module is reccomended for experienced players! The monsters are unusual and many of the encounters can be quite deadly. However, the author does give us options to increase and decrease the deadliness of many of the encounters by adding optional rules, NPCs and monsters as needed to challenge the PCs. These can be added during the encounters as needed, so bonus points to Kortes there! The magic items are awesome, however they are also not typical items and their unique features will challenge players.

DMs will need to read thoroughly, as this adventure is not 100% chronologial by event; part 3 has events that will occur throughout the adventure. The DM will also need to track days spent in Ravengro, as the PCs cannot progress to their next objective until 30 days have passed; also part 3:1 is chronological. Many parts need DM prep and a good understanding for smooth running, the town hall and pgs 35 and 35 will need to be summarized into dialogue for the roleplaying group. This adventure is also keen on handouts, the DM will need to keep track of who has which special magic item, so item cards are highly reccomended.

This volume heavily favours roleplaying groups. Hack and slash groups will be frustrated and disappointed with the atypical monsters who don't drop treasure when they die. Also, many of the battles are "boss" battles. Additionally, PCs who research are rewarded with XP, though this is not necessary to progress.

All in all an AP I'm really wanting to run...just not for everyone.

I GM'd this adventure for three players, and it was thoroughly enjoyable for all of us. It is very well done. Although there are a few flaws that a GM needs to be aware of, they are all fairly easily corrected with little fuss.

There are basically two parts to this adventure: the events in the town of Ravengro, which center on investigation, research, and dealing with some spooky occurrances; and a dungeon crawl.

The Ravengro section is interesting and can be quite engaging; however, there can easily be a temptation for the PCs to skip right to the dungeon crawl and miss out on all of this material. The GM will need to come up with some tricks and techniques if he wants to make sure that the PCs experience all of this part of the adventure.

There is an acknowledged problem with the Ravengro Trust system due to editorial errors. However, this can easily be fixed if the GM is willing to make a few minor adaptations, or the Trust system can be discarded altogether without doing much damage to the adventure.

The dungeon crawl portion is exceptionally well done. It is thematically coherent, architecturally logical, and narratively well arranged. All of these things work together to build a believable, immersive experience. The challenge level is high yet reasonable, creating a sense of real danger, but not of any unfairness.

The dungeon's only potential weakness is that it relies heavily on haunts. If the GM or the players do not like haunts, there may need to be some major adjustments. However, the haunts here are appropriate and well-designed, so they are less likely to cause frustration.

This adventure earn four stars. It is very fun, and the few problems can be easily corrected by a good GM. I highly recommended it.

This was my groups first go at Pathfinder after playing *that other game* for a couple of years. At first everyone was skeptical, comparing game systems to each other. But because this adventure is so rich with story and plot, the players soon forgot mechanics and just started to play the game.

The story starts off with a fair amount of investigation, which my players loved learning about the backstory of the word they were entering. They then spent time exploring the haunted prison while taking a great interest in the townsfolk of Ravengro. I have a large group (6 players + me GM'ing) and its hard to keep everyones attention- but the HoH managed to do just that. With enough horror elements to keep everyone guess to enough tactical elements to keep everyone alert.

The last thing I'll mention is the "new" elements introduced in the module, mainly haunts and some new magic items commonly associated with 'horror' themes. My group had fun learning about the haunts and how to stop them while forcing them to sometimes run back to town to reconsider their actions.

This is easily one of my favorite modules of all time. And, it made my group embrace Pathfinder (forgetting that other game for at least five more modules).

We finished book 1 last night. I know that our GM (who is excellent) made some tweaks, and I have not read the original. However, this was perhaps the best round of RP sessions I have ever had, and the content of Harrowstone are to be credited. Yes, yes, and yes again.

A strong start to CC. An excellent old-fashioned haunted house adventure complete with suspicious townsfolk and secrets of the past. My group has a great time playing through this. Its been a long time since I've enjoyed running a dungeon crawl but Harrowstone is a great setting and the use of haunts, atmosphere and story kept it fresh and engaging each session

This is the best adventure I've ever run in any fantasy RPG. This adventure follows the classic dungeon crawl run: your typical small town, with a dungeon nearby. However, under those premises, it doesn't get any better than this.

It is not entirely perfect. If your group is not very experienced, you'll need to downsize some of the later, more brutal encounters (specially if they miss XP opportunities along the way). On the other hand, you'll need to change part of the premise along with some of the handouts for an experienced group, or they'll get the evident clues and rush to the dungeon, missing most of the background and optional events. Also, the adventure has been designed for a relaxed group who won't mind to wait multiple days identifying items, levelling up or researching archives, even with a clear danger lurking nearby. You'll probably want to speed up the timed events a little in most cases.

That being said, the amount of background, the great villains, and the unpredictable nature of the haunts can make this into one incredible run. Like any good horror-themed dungeon crawl, the perils here are overwhelming and can essentially wipe any unprepared group, so they'll need to proceed with caution and study their foes in advance before they dare to jump into the dark paths ahead. The adventure provides plenty of mystery, a constant sense of urgency, an interesting hook, and a ton of roleplaying opportunity. Highly recommended.

Pros:
1. Introduction: I’ve always enjoyed the intros and the view into the developer world, but what I especially enjoyed was the information on how to implement music that would be relevant to your campaign. I hope to see more of this in future APs.

2. Story: The story is by far one of the most fascinating parts of this adventure, and the way it involves the players seemed to keep my players rooted to their seat when I spoke. They found it creepy, but my storytelling capabilities seemed to be lacking to make them actually afraid.

3. The haunts section was also an enjoyable read over and I plan on using these more and more in the future, and maybe not just with a horror based campaign, only time will tell there.

4. The bestiary was another great point for this book. I enjoyed the detailed write-ups and Spring Heeled Jack is now being used as a point to bring new characters into my story before we head off to “The Trial of the Beast”.

Cons:
1. The only con I could find with the book was the fiction section. Now, I’ve read the entire fiction section, and I found it enjoyable, but I’d of rather had more information on the adventure, or more monsters, or more info on potential side quests for Ravengro. Something other than that. I actually found it frustrating having to pick up the story from book to book. If it had been all in one spot, I would have enjoyed it much more, but I just don’t feel it added to this AP or book any way.

I have never enjoyed reading an adventure so much. I can't wait to inflict it on my players!

I read it and must say liking the way horror is portrayed. Much of it is of course description by the DM but the added tunes to play while running the game was a very nice touch. Fair amount of combat but not too much. Allowing skill checks to play an important role and awarding xp for it. While this has been done before, it addresses the issue of some players I know who feel DnD is all about combat. "You only gain XP from killing or destroying things." The portrayal of Harrowstone was not dark and scary because of the knowledge of undead around which were trying to kill you. It had a more passive diablo 1 creepiness about it. ALL in all, a good start to the adventure.

I hate those typical D&D 4th Adventures where you go to A, Kill B and then go to C.
Switching to Pathfinder I found CarrionCrown and we started playing the first Adventure. I really love that its more skill and knowledge based and gives me lots of opportunity to do real Roleplay and character development. But also still has enough combat in it to be very testing.
My group is seriously enjoying it and want MORE.....good that there are 6 of them 