This pdf is 21 pages long, 1 page advertisement, 1 page front cover, 1 page back cover.
The first page, apart from the credits, contains 4 adventure hooks.
3 Pages contain the map of the tavern as well as a concise and flavorful text describing the tavern as well as its staff Venn "the Vulture" (barkeeper) and Liseli (serving maid), both with secrets to center one or more adventures around.
It should be noted that one map does not feature a key while the other one does, which is very important if you are like me and hate drawing maps and like to print them out without much fuss.
The second one features a well-arranged key and shows the secret compartments. It should also be noted that there is a drawing depicting a secret door and HOW it is hidden.
The next 2 pages are taken up by Venn's Statblock, a neat minor magic item and my favorite part of the book: Magical "upgrade" poisons for poison, to improve or delay it, to keep those pesky clerics from easily dispelling it etc. If you're like me and love poisoning your PCs, these alone are worth the price. Neatly designed, easy to implement and well-thought out. There are also two new feats: One that lets an alchemist really be about skill when making potions and one to create aforementioned poison-upgrades. Both are easy to implement in any given setting.
The next 2 pages are taken up with Liseli's statblock, which is a beauty to behold. You can take a look at the statblock in the FREE "Rite Review" E-zine that can be downloaded here.
(What are you waiting for? There's all kinds of goodies in there!)
Then we have 1 page OGL and after that a 9 page map of the tavern, for use with miniatures, if you're so inclined.
The prose, written as an account of a visit, is a fun and engaging read and puts one in the appropriate mindset to use the tavern right now (or read some of the classic "Thieves World" books).
The art is nice for this low price.
If I had to find something to nitpick, it would be that there is no secret escape route behind the bar, but that's more than nitpicking.
I got a nice location, a good read, some nice ideas and the poison upgrades for 2 bucks.
If you need some inspiration for poisons or an additional edge for a planned poison-murder-mystery, pick this up now.
It's awesome.
Disclaimer:
I HATED, HATED, HATED the Warforged. There are several reasons for this and it has, quite frankly, been the main reason for me not to buy this pdf for a long time. Until one of my players asked, whether it would be possible to play a gear-enhanced human and presented an excellent 4 page backstory. I dislike construct races for PCs, but his concept was cool.
To the review:
The base race is VERY well-balanced and the ironborn-subtype features the construct-flair without making wilderness/starvation/environmental adventures a joke for the character. Kudos!
The true strength is the versatility of the race, though. You choose a base-suit of abilities according to the purpose of the ironborn.
The concept of the "burden", i.e. an instilled craving to do what it was created to do helps to easily drop them in any adventurer group and makes for nice roleplaying opportunities.
The ability suits are well-balanced, with one possible exception: The Centurion Suite is, on low levels, the ULTIMATE tank. Plus, it hits a pet peeve of mine: It has a 25% chance to negate crits against the players. This is the only suite I'd exclude for my players, at least until they are level 5. My favorite was the Omenbuilt: I'm going to use the mini-token mechanic for other chars, too. Awesome!
The feats are well-designed and don't seem to be too overpowered, although two of them hit another pet peeve of mine: "Spring-loaded Reflexes" and "intricate joints" give Ironborn access to uncanny dodge, and improved uncanny dodge, respectively. These are class features for me, not something that other classes have readily access to without multi-classing.
While the prose is good, it's not as AWESOME as the prose in the "Wyrd"-pdf.
Due to the fact that it hit 2 pet-peeves of mine, I give it 4 stars. Highly recommended for any campaign and better designed than the warforged.
This is my kind of monster. Nasty, imaginative abilities and cool background make this race really cool.
The background could easily be used in Conan/Mesopotamian games as well as high fantasy and I can easily picture a series of adventures centering on the creatures: Thanks to their deadly abilities, PCs may actually be forced to slay the creature in a dishonorable fashion, triggering a whole set of adventures centering on the morekareth.
What's to say more: Awesome mechanics, cool tactics, great fluff. Easy to implement in almost any campaign.
My only, very minor criticism would be that the art didn't really impress me when compared to other RiP-artwork. But that's probably due to the fact that the morekareth reminded me of one of my most beloved Conan/Red Sonja crossover comics featuring an honor-obsessed juggernaut like this. :)
The other reviews have been quite extensive, so I'm going to keep it short and sweet:
The Wyrd are cool, especially for a setting that has ties with an oriental continent/culture.
The race per se is really imaginative, although I'm not sure whether I'd use them as PCs - they seem to be quite strong, at least for my rather low-powered, rare magic campaign.
The paragon-class is cool and captures the eastern fantasy-flick-flair nicely.
The PrC is awesome - I could see myself playing this class.
The new Spells are cool, too.
Why only 4 stars? They are kinda hard to implement and seem to be a bit stronger than the core races. Plus: While there are a lot of allusions to Questhaven, I have nor yet managed to piece everything together. A sourcebook on the city would be awesome and would help to make this pdf even cooler. *nudgenudge* ;)
EDIT: If you have an oriental campaign or a high-fantasy campaign and need a power-behind-the-throne villain-build, be sure to check "Wyrds" out. The PrC alone is worth the price of the pdf.
The RPG resource review has mentioned almost everything I have to say about this module.
I'd definitely recommend using "The Doom from Below" in conjunction with "Murder of Crows":
MoC as a kind of prequel to the exploration in TDfB. They complement each other very well: MoC has enough interaction to smooth over the lack of social encounters in TDfB. (Which is understandable, considering the nature of the module.)
The finale is awesome and really something different. Highly recommended to kick off a new CoC campaign, especially in conjunction with MoC.
"Murder of Crows" is a short, but sweet introductory adventure for CoC.
It features 2 handouts, a map of Bethlehem and 4 pregens.
The investigators are called in to find out what has prompted huge amounts of crows to besiege the peaceful town of Bethlehem.
While the adventure generates an awesome tension via the birds and other, paranormal occurrences and manages to pull off a constant feeling of paranoia and rising tension, it is, unfortunately not without its own flaws.
The mood is awesome (that cannot be stressed enough!), but the investigation is too easy:
There is a macguffin document (which, the adventure states, the keeper should leave out, if it's too easy on the players) to to be found that flat-out states whom to blame for the situation.
Unfortunately, this is one of the handouts.
The villain is quite frankly the first one to be suspected by any experienced investigators. There are red herrings, but they are a bit obvious.
There is an easy solution, though: Make the villain an insane victim and put the true source of the siege in the hands of another person in the town. That way, you get an awesome finale and can add a scene where the investigators return to the town to find the true enemy.
The formatting and prose are clear, concise and high-quality, the pictures are nice and capture the mood.
There are some minor typos in the background of one of the pregens.
For the idea and the mood, I'd give 5 stars. Awesome. There is an idea called "River of Vermin". Need I say more?
For the rather bland and much too easy investigation (that in my opinion serves as a backdrop for the mood), that unfortunately uses a CoC-trope (Mansion, document, yawn) in an otherwise original and innovative adventure, I'd give 2 Stars.
In the end, I settled on 3 stars, just because the mood and shock-ideas are awesome, innovative and just plain cool. A Keeper for an experienced group has to expand the investigation, though.
Any keeper planning on running an innovative Hitchcockish or paranoia-laden adventure should give it a try.
I usually don't buy modern modern Cthulhu adventures due to a personal dislike for all the possibilities our day and age offers for the investigators.
This adventure is the exception to the rule.
SoaeW features a non-linear plot that is nevertheless easy to keep track of, thanks to a simple, but effective marker-system. The plot is divided up in several stages, all of which have multiple possibilities for the investigators to get clues. I've read the massive 118p adventure thrice now and still can't imagine any kind of situation that would result in a grinding halt and players unsure of what to do.
There is always a whole set of alternatives waiting for the investigators, up to the point where I can see completely different experiences each time the adventure is run.
Furthermore, it features 11 handouts, extensive and well-researched guidelines to convert in to the 1890s or 1920s (4 pages) is concisely written and feels fresh due to the avoidance of many of the CoC-clichés.
SoaeW also manages to pull off a climax worthy of the name, as deadly and awesome as a CoC-climax is supposed to be.
My only gripe is that I found some minor typos. Not enough to annoy me, but they are there.
Not yet sold in spite of the low price for 118p?
I've got one argument left:
(Minor spoiler ahead!)
Which CoC-adventure you know actually has the chance for the investigators to meet Elvis? Hail to the King, baby!
This adventure has a cool background story steeped in Golarion fluff. Unfortunately, this story has to be relayed in its entirety as a monologue by the DM, as the players can't really find out more during the adventure. So far: 5 Stars.
There are enough Maps and I like them.
The faction missions are not that great, especially the Taldor mission is annoying at best. Cool fluff, but it's actually a "Search the PIECES of the McGuffin" Mission. Oh joy, several search checks. -.- Minus one Star.
The main antagonist and the adversaries are kind of lame, both my players and I would have preferred to trail the servants of the muted god or battle them to killing them. Minus One Star.
This adventure, especially a showdown in the final hall (trying to not make any sound...), could have been such a great ride, but unfortunately falls short of its promising ideas.
Although potentially very bloody and grim (failure results in a little town of ghouls), this scenario evokes a great atmosphere, features an extremely awesome climax and actually has faction missions that are not strictly your run-of-the-mill crap.
Highly recommended and could easily be adapted as a horror adventure for any other system.
Excellent work once again, Mr. Hitchcock!
I have read this scenario and considered it to sure work awesome... until I ran it.
Some of the rooms are confusing to describe to the players, albeit not nearly half as bad as the town in "Hydra Fang".
What kind of broke this adventure for me were two separate issues:
The first would be the already mentioned "Video-gamism"-feeling.
The second issue I had was one of suspension of disbelief: The puzzles were too simple. Perhaps my players and I are total nerds, but I really thought that any experienced treasure hunters who failed to solve them must have been utter idiots.
I am so longing for adventures with REALLY hard puzzles in some future release(at least as a web-enhancement or something like that). My players long to use their brains and this adventure, in spite of its name, unfortunately fails to provide that.
This adventure has it all:
Opportunities to use social skills.
Great Maps. (This one does it right, "Fingerprints of the Fiend"!)
Innovative terrain and encounters.
(Relatively) cool faction missions that, while not awesome are distinctive and don't feel attached.
Great Golarion fluff.
Nice wilderness hazards/enemies.
My PCs actually felt like they had accomplished something after this adventure.
It's been a great read and my players loved it.
What are you waiting for? Buy it! ;)
This adventure kicks off as a down-to-earth mystery and degrades into a strange, very high-fantasy-style mini-delve that seems strangely inappropriate for low levels. My players had glaring "WTFs" floating above their heads halfway through and were really stoked when they entered the mini-dungeon. Only to easily slaughter everything in their way. The opportunities were there, but it feels like this one would have been better off as three or four scenarios, gradually building up the suspense and the mystery. the solution is anti-climatic and simple.
Not bad, but...strange.
I was skeptical after reading this adventure. From a DM's perspective, this one is quite boring.
There is a battle in a sandstorm without significant repercussions of the environment. Wasted chance. The encounters in the shrine seem to be tagged on.
But: My players liked it and the Andoran faction mission can open up some great roleplaying potential. Paradoxically, it is also the one with the smallest connection to the plot.
I don't know whether the author was going for it, but the scenario actually feels like escorting a caravan. Monotonous (for the DM, my players liked it) and boring.
This adventure is not a total disaster, but quite close.
The story is nice, although it's completely up to the DM to narrate everything.
The villain is boring, the encounters fail to take full advantage of their setup.
Why did I give this onyl one star? It took me two hours to understand how the coastal village is supposed to look like and to adequately convey it to my players has really bugged me. Why do the NPCs do nothing about the villain? Why is one of the encounters in a boat completely out of place?
Logic bugs kill adventures. The Hydra Fang has left me with a slight toothache.
This adventure is interesting: It features a mini-game in the form of a chase in mine carts and some evocative, nice flavor that ties in nicely with Golarion. The fluff is not lost on the PCs, which is a definite plus.
It's a deadly adventure, as already stated in the other review. For me, that's another plus, but this scenario, I repeat, is NOT easy. So far: 5 Stars
There are some gripes I have with this adventure: -The final fight with an intruder to the ruins happens after an encounter with some native humanoids of the place, which is a minor logic bug for me. -1 Star
-The final fight is rather run-of-the-mill and uninspired, especially after the cool chase.
-The faction missions are nothing to write home about. Boring. -1 Star
-There are unfortunately no maps for some encounters. I don't use flipmats and I don't buy map packs. This module tells me to do so: Quite frankly, I felt like it said "What? You don't own those? Sucks to be you - you'll have to make some s$~~ up." How hard is it to copy a miniature map of a bit of land into the module? -1 Star
I got the scenarios 21+ as a present from my players. I would have been even more annoyed by the map faux-pas if I had bought this myself.
It was a fun time while playing, but preparing it left my with an extremely sour aftertaste.
I tend to read the faction missions of a scenario first. The missions sounded nice, but ultimately, after reading the summary, all went down to fetch the gizmo.
And every faction has two generic fetch-the-gizmo-crap/ slay x missions with the associated awards. Great.
The nature of the BBEG is not foreshadowed, but constantly beaten over the heads of the PCs. It took my players not even a minute to accurately guess the nature of the antagonist.
The first encounter proved to be mildly annoying for my PCs.
The subsequent encounters screamed lightning bolt/fireball formation and, quite frankly make this scenario a classic kill everything with fire experience. That might be fun sometimes, but there is NOTHING to intrigue a Player or DM. No puzzle, no RP, this scenario is about mindlessly slaughtering everything.
The adventure does not consist of plot-holes, like "The Trouble with Secrets", but is, quite frankly, monotonous.
The final boss, however, is damn cool, lethal and a fun and challenging fight after all the drudgery and the only saving grace of this adventure.
If your players don't feature enough ranged firepower, your PCs will die here. A lot of them.
I'd give this adventure 1.5 Stars with tendency towards 2.
I'm not quite sure why this has not yet been reviewed.
One reason may be the premise: An interplanar ship of Azlanti origin has returned to the harbor of Absalom and has to be investigated by the PCs who are to look after harbor guards in the process.
Damn, this adventure is so cool, I'd give it 6 stars, if I could. The PCs will be battling with the defense-mechanisms of the ship, facing its alien technology and finally battling in an awesome, extremely cool showdown that requires both a bit of brains & brawls. The faction missions are decent, but nothing to write home about.
Still, this has been one of the scenarios both I and my players loved and that left us with a sense of accomplishment. It's daring, cool and unusual.
If you dislike tiny sprinklings of SciFi, steer clear, otherwise: Grab this one. It's awesome and courageous and definitely not one of those boring run of the mill scenarios.
This adventure is not 100% linear. That's a plus.
It's got a great feel of venturing in the lion's den and a climatic, darn cool showdown. Fast-paced and fun, for both players and DMs.
However: It's difficult. My players are no wusses and 2 of them nearly got killed while fleeing in the end.
A great scenario for those who think that most of the others are too easy, bland or lacking a cinematic climax.
My only (and minor) gripe with it is its title. "Skeleton Moon" evokes associations of Groetus and there is a distinct lack of the god of end-times in this module.
I unfortunately have to disagree with Keasar. I bought this one due to the fact, that it was considered to be extremely lethal. My players enjoy challenges, consider most scenarios to be too easy and I am a sucker for well-crafted enemies.
I'm in a similar situation, but my experience has, unfortunately, been different from his.
This adventure, unfortunately, only features one well-crafted thing, and that is the Boss. The premise is ridiculous, the story consists of plot holes and I had to spend about two hours making sense of the background and rewriting it. Even after that, I was hard-pressed to fight with the suspension of disbelief. The final Boss was cool and a challenge, the rest of the encounters screamed "Fireball Formation". Not as bad as "Eye of the Crocodile King", but quite close.
A for Creature, F for the Rest.
Great location, damn cool "mini-game", challenging encounters. Nothing bad to report.
The rules of the "mini-game" will continue to have a place in my home-brew campaign.
If you think about buying any Season 0 scenario, buy this one.
My players and myself enjoyed the faction missions.
We also liked Grandmaster Torch's reappearance. But the adventure itself is rather bland.
It's great flavor-wise, but the adventure in itself is not engaging.
Solid average.
I bashed on "Eye of the Crocodile King" for being a sewer level. This scenario is another sewer level.
But it's one done right. The fights are easy, but fun, there is at least a bit of good ol' roleplaying among the rollplaying and at least some of the faction missions are not your average run-of-the-mill grab-stuff.
Not great, but we had a fun time with this one.
This adventure is lacking on so many levels.
It's supposed to be a prison break, but getting in is so easy that everybody should have escaped a long time ago.
The way to get into the dungeon made me chuckle for a split-second. That's it.
The faction missions are boring, the prison break is utterly unconvincing as presented and any DM who wants to run this scenario as intended, has to specifically tell his players NOT to do anything creative and just roll with the choo-choo-train. The map is a nice frame for a homebrew prisonbreak. That's about the only positive thing I have to say about this adventure.
This adventure is not for novices. It's not for Level 1 PCs, who will most definitely get killed.
It's not for novice DMs who can't evoke a creepy atmosphere.
It's not for novice players, who will get slaughtered.
It's long for a scenario.
BUT: It's as close to a mini-sandbox as a scenario can possibly get and, if treated right, one can have a total blast, including the opportunity for the PCs to create an ambush.
The flavor is also interesting.
The premise of this adventure is cool. The set-up is cool. Then it becomes the Pen & Paper equivalent of a sewer level. The faction missions are uninspired, the combat is boring and the story goes nowhere. The background hinted at completely breaks down and gives way to one of the most boring crawls I've ever played. It was boring to read and my players did not enjoy this slugfest either.
The one PF scenario I don't want to run EVER again.
This has been one of the most boring scenarios EVER. The premise and flavor is interesting, but my players realized what it's all about after the first hour. After that, everything went downwards and the final fight was ridiculously easy.
Boring for both GM and Players, the flavor saves this mod from being a complete waste of money and time.
This adventure is NOT for the faint of heart, but I actually consider this one to be one of the better PFS Scenarios. Why? Because the atmosphere, if adequately evoked, is unique, has a surreal touch and is just plain fun. I ran this as a part of my home campaign with slightly modified motivations (each PC got a faction mission from one of his acquaintances) and had a blast running it. My players also loved the utter "strangeness" of the mirage. It's not perfect balance-wise, but the flavor and feeling is unique.
I like this sidetrek.
It is fun, challenging and features a great, evocative new monster.
Apart from that, my only quarrel with this little piece is, that "Mysteries of the Razor Coast" as well as "Still Waters" are slightly better.
It's still a great deal.
If you bought the second wave of indulgences via SA, you got them all for 8 bucks anyway, so it's an even better deal.
Well worth your money.
On the one hand, I love the reimagination of the monk. I love the fluff.
On the other hand, there is a feat that is so over the top, it hurts.
I can only despise "Montain breaking Fist". For one feat, you get an unarmed threat range of 15-20 and ignore ANY DR apart from /epic. And you only need Improved unarmed strike, improved critical and another feat from the Pdf to take it.
This feat is so terribly broken, it really drags down the rating. I'd give this Pdf 4 Stars, but this feat is TERRIBLE. Ignore it, unless you go for insanely overpowered PCs.
Richard Pett delivers.
The adventure is lethal, well-crafted, spooky and challenging.
Environmental dangers, evocative battles and a writing that makes you really see the threats before you.
Two thumbs up, 5 stars.
Well, it's a nice underwater sidetrek for three bucks.
It's better than a lot of other sidetreks.
Nothing too special in my opinion, but still nice to have for $3.00.
Especially in the really cheap Indulgences-wave-deal on SA.
This is the best Pdf when it comes to the topic of duels.
Easy to implement, evocative and plain incredible at the price of $1.50.
Buy this.
Now.
The rules for binds alone are worth ten times the price.
This adventure is a whopping 71 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside the front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page advertisement, 1 page back cover, leaving 64 pages for the fourth installment of the Road to Revolution campaign arc.
This being an adventure review, the following contains massive SPOILERS. Potential players might want to jump to the conclusion.
Still here?
....
Seriously, you don't want to SPOIL this one.
...
All right! How does one Top the potentially furious finale of a Dock Ward set ablaze? And how does one do it with the blandest (at least in my opinion) ward of the Great City? A Kortezian Clan, Gimbros, sees the Great City as the promised land of their patron deity W'Jur and a female scion of said clan has lately made the acquaintance of Azindralean loyalists and over them, started manipulating a helmate of Adhelmus Oxda called Bizby Eialla, servant to the patron god of the oppressors to take the fall for the things to come...
Be it via the broadsides or one of their various employers from earlier installments of RtR, the PCs are pointed towards Erromin's (also known as The Crusader's Inn, including a detailed map) where the adventure might kick off with a brawl - hopefully the PCs are smart enough to talk the crowd down and gain their trust. After some good brawling and/or investigating, the PCs are pointed towards the Holy Smokes, a hookah-café that doubles as the favorite hangout for the scions of Clan Gimbros, a rather powerful group of adventurers (including a flesh-golem disguised as another one of the crew who is not only smarter and deadlier, but has a literal heart of gold) called Brandy-Foxes. The group of Gimbros is led by Larina Beltimont-Gimbros and after an immaculate conversation of misinformation she send the PCs off to the warehouse where the masques for Adhelmus Oxda's impending, solemn Masque are kept.
The two-story warehouse gets very detailed maps featuring huge chains to pull up papier-mâché floats and even cut out versions of the chains for use as impromptu, slow, but deadly weapons. Why would the PCs do that? Well, their breaking into the ware-house is a set-up and legendary enforcer of Adhelmus Oxda, Bonnabel Treach attacks with his hypnosimians, mistaking them for accomplices of Bizby. This encounter is simply awesome, evoking not only the feeling of fighting a smart, well-trained troupe of elite-enforcers in a unique location, but also offers cool environmental hazards. If they survive, negotiate, defeat etc. Bonnabel, they'll have some questions and be none the wiser, returning to the Holy Smokes.
Back at the Hookah lounge, they'll have to eventually deal with Reth Grimbos, one of the Brnady Foxes and his animated opium-fumes-spilling Hookahs. Once they defeat him (and find 2 of the copious handouts provided), they'll have to attend the great and solemn masque of Adhelmus Oxda to find Bizby.
In a great piece of meta-humor and twisting of roleplaying clichés, Bizby is clad in a red herring costume and the encounter that has the PCs trying to spot Bizby at the masque is complex cool, and comes with a whole page of complications, culminating in Bizby announcing the advent of Adhelmus Oxda's temple before using a special kind of dust to escape to the sewers, the PCs hot on his trail. Following him through the sewers, the PCs might find the entrance to the legendary Blackened Vein, where the revolutionary, legendary hardy brutes once held their last stand. There, the PCs might find a prominent general's bunker (fully mapped), now inhabited by an underearth man and offering a puzzle-encounter that can be at once considered a nod to e.g. the Fallout series and rather unique in its set-up.
Finally, the PCs reach a (once again, fully mapped) limestone cavern, where Bizby tried to use a clockwork bomb, just to be interrupted by a dread aberration - whether Bizby is killed or not, has been caught or not - several possible outcomes may come from this. Bizby has the clockwork detonator to the bomb and cripple, the fleshgolem with the heart of gold, stand ready to destroy the pillars of the cavern with brute force, if necessary. Should both fail, the Brandy Foxes launch an all-out assault, making this one of the several possible conclusions of the adventure. But why do they want to blow up the cavern? Blowing it up will kill Bizby, drain the temple ward's Lake Idyll directly into the caverns weeping the PCs along the blackened Vein into a cavern, where the floating, sub-terranean temple of W'Jur while putting the blame on the adherents of Adhelmus Oxda.
After hopefully surviving the flush through the vein and the attacks of the golem, the PCs are flushed into from a waterfall into a huge cavern that is starting to fill with sewage, slowly lifting the temple of W'Jur upwards. The ascent is controlled by 4 huge chains and the PCs, once they have reached the fully-mapped, floating temple will have a climax of the most epic proportions on their hands. Not content with discrediting Adhelmus Oxda, the rising temple features a detonator pole that, during the rise, sets of explosions that will start to annihilate the respective temples of the temple ward, blowing them up from below. The PCs will have to try to save the castrati children choir singing praises to W'Jur while fighting said god's adherents, the Brandy Foxes under the command of Larina and contend with more complications: Bonnabel Treach and his allies attack via hypnosimian-dragged rattan baskets. If that was not enough, a now defunct goddess of slaughter and one of her mad adherents have infiltrated the W'Jur-priests, thus a huge, deadly Zaelamental rises from the sewage and sluge, as the buried power of this goddess is once again unleashed. Have I mentioned the potential for single chains slacking and tilting the temple? If this finale seems awesome, but daunting to run, fret not, for a several pages are provided for you to make running this mega-battle actually EASY and manageable with minimum preparation. I managed to run a flawless finale with just 2 read-throughs of the whole adventure. Depending on the finale, the temple may rise or not, get jammed in the shaft, the PCs might be wanted fugitives or not and the temple ward might lie in shambles, piety and trust in the gods broken beyond repair. W'Jur may have ascended to the rank of a greater deity due to being the one to emerge from the destruction and lastly, the mistress of slaughter might be on the rise again...
The pdf closes with new stats for monsters, to be more precise, the Hypnosimians (CR 2), the Underearth Man (CR 10) and the Zaelamental (CR 13).
...for experienced and mature players. "The Hangman's Noose" is downright creepy and deadly.
I highly recommend it to every DM who wants to challenge his players. If they get sore about dying, however, be careful - this one is deadly!
*hehehe*
This campaign setting/city source book is 162 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside front cover, 1 paged editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page advertisement, 1 page blank inside back cover and 1 page back cover, leaving a whopping 154 pages of content for us to lose ourselves in, so let's check it out!
Due to the size of this book, I'll not comment on each and every nook and cranny of the city as detailed in this pdf, but rather give you an overview, some examples and generally tell you which components caught my fancy.
After a 1 page foreword, we're treated to an introduction to the city per se in chapter 1, complete with a nice map, heraldry of the noble houses and basic information such as political positions and taxation. The basic premise for the general political landscape is that there are two human ethnicities, the Azindraleans and the Kortezians and the latter have subjugated the land in the past, now having been installed for a very long time. While this might look like a colonial backdrop, it really isn't - the city is aptly named after London in its imperial heyday, as it is a blistering metropolis of trade, intrigue and adventure, at the same time blessed and cursed by the cultural discrepancies between the houses of its ruling class.
Set against this backdrop of a now semi-independent metropolis with political unrest, we are introduced to the individual wards of the city, all of which get their own maps. Even better, we get personalities of interest, a huge plethora of interesting locations that fit to the ward and even some more than interesting adventure locales. Each of the wards comes with such a distinct flair that they might actually serve as their own towns and the distinctiveness of the wards lends itself to comparisons of the best among modern urban fantasy writing: Though I happen to love the work of e.g. China Míéville, you don't have to necessarily dwell upon the more urban/steam-punkish/weird elements of the city, as this setting succeeds in walking the tightest of lines, providing on the one side all you'd need to do to steer your campaign in that direction, while still having the option to ignore the almost industrial-revolution feeling of the city. Nice bits of details like parade, festivities, etc. are also presented as are new and old street names, taking to conflict between Azindraleans and Kortezians and their supporters to the linguistic level. That being said, on to the wards (which all get their alternate monikers to choose from depending on the NPC):
-The Army Ward contains both a coliseum and of course, the judicial branch as well as the barracks for the military. Consequently, we are also introduced to several generals and to the intrigues within the military.
-The Castle Ward contains, surprise, the castle and the manions of the ruling class. As such, it's of course heavily patrolled And features some nice ideas with regards to the politics of the city. We also get a sidebar detailing the prejudices of the different ethnicities towards other factions and people, which proved to be immensely useful. Once again, the adventure hooks are plain awesome.
-Dock Ward, the trade-hub could have easily fallen prey to feeling somehow like Freeport. Thankfully, due to the great writing, the docks feel unique and even comes with a ncie, creepy children's rhyme.
-Residential Ward: Probably one of the coolest districts, at least in my humble opinion, this is the hot-bed of Kortezian resistance against their oppressors. The district is almost catatonic in day-time. At night, however, the whole district erupts into an extremely atmospheric carnival and drunken revelry, including a butcher that makes entertainment of his slaughtering pigs likened to the nobility, a group of creepy mimes as well as hilarious jokes played upon the tax-collecting lord. This chapter alone is probably cooler than almost any ward I've ever read in any medium.
-Temple Ward: A rather safe place, the temple ward features a procession of benevolent ghosts that seek to ease the burden of the downtrodden, cultist and clerical intrigues and a disfigured, albeit brillant soprano who has become a kind of celebrity with a nice twist and potential for political unrest.
-Trades Ward: This is where both mercantile feuds and criminal syndicates/gangs clash, where the slave-trade is orchestrated and where adventueres can both spend and earn money in a plethora of different ways.
After that, we get a great investigation-style introductory adventure in whcih the PCs have 3 days to prove the innocence of a man who is charged for murder and can expect no justice from the court.
We also get some nice monsters, one of which, an aberration, is just plain genius.
Finally, we get a huge amount of pages devoted to providing stat-blocks for all the NPCs introduced in the book.
Conclusion:
Layout adheres to the two-column standard, is clear and concise and printer-friendly b/w. The book is extensively bookmarked, but could have used another pass at editing: I noticed a bunch of minor typos & editing glitches as well as some minor homophone-errors. While none impeded my ability to understand the content, it's the only significant problem I have with this book. The writing of the were-cabbages is absolutely stunning and the city comes to life in a way I have rarely encountered in any work of fiction, be it RPG-book or fantasy novel. The huge amount of unconventional ideas and hooks for adventures is enough to keep a DM going for years and even make you actually want to do it. While the details presented, the setting falls somewhat short on the item/drugs/poison/etc. section, but with e.g. 4Wind Fantasy Games "Luven Lightfingers"-book, you can easily remedy that. Usually, I'd settle for a verdict of 3 or 3.5 stars due to the amount of editing glitches, HOWEVER: Even if you're as nitpicky as I am, at least think about giving this book a chance - the writing is that good. Yeah, it's 3.5 and while the stats thus are not PFRPG, the writing alone is more than sufficient to make up for that. My final verdict will thus be 4 stars: One of the best, most imaginative city-sourcebooks out there.
This adventure for levels 1-3 is 58 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside the front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 2 pages of advertisements, 1 page back cover, leaving 50 pages for the plots afoot to unfold, so let's check it out!
The first thing you'll notice is that the adventure is extensively bookmarked, layout is clear and printer-friendly b/w.
That's as far as I can go without going into details. This being an adventure review, SPOILERS will now continue to abound - potential players, please jump to the conclusion!
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SPOILERS
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Still here? All righty, so let's check out what the PCs will be up against!
"A Pound of Flesh" is an investigation-heavy adventure that focuses on mystery and players acting smart and subsequently kicks off via several possible hooks, all centering on the PCs investigating disappearances in the dock ward. After some careful probing, their first lead (possibly provided by a half-orc pimp) is an old crone and her bugbear-lover, who are responsible for killing the missing persons.
This is where you'll realize that this adventure is both complex and cool - the NPCs have strategies to cope with investigators, secret light signals the PCs can analyze and even have a whole interrogation section. Have I mentioned that the PCs in this section might encounter a she-male warrior and a traumatized soldier. Oh, and there's this serpentine-affine guy and a noble in session with a dominatrix. Seedy, iconic locations abound and the lead sends the PCs to a seedy bar and the saltshacks, a dock of halfling houseboats. It should be noted that both the seedy bordello and the shacks and even a fish-processing boat get their detailed maps, which really helps envisioning the areas. The halfling-accomplice quickly rolls over and the PCs are led to a mortuary (again, with its own map) and which could see the PCs trying to escape with clues from the burning building. Moreover, if the players screw up, there are always more ways to get them back on track.
After the blaze, the PCs reach a supposedly haunted shipyard (again with a detailed map) and enter the dungeon/infiltration-section of the adventure. Via the sewers, the PCs can infiltrate a cult of cannibalistic, depraved hunger-cultists and infiltrate they should - the defenses of the cult are superb and smart, showcasing that NPCs don't have to be too mechanically strong when they fight smart. The cultist-temple and the grimlock-servants are supremely creepy, featuring e.g. harnesses with animated zombie-arms. How cool is that? Oh, if the PCs screw up royally, they can fight a cthulhoid, extremely deadly entity. And no, that's NOT the climax. The climax of the adventure actually starts with the PCs climbing from the cultist's base to participate in the masque-ball of the main antagonist, mingling with the guests while trying to root out cultists, not get assassinated by them and collect the final clues and confront the villain. Who actually uses INTELLIGENT tactics and is not just another stat-block. Suffice to say, both the cultist hide-out and the mansion feature their own detailed maps and the masquerade is among the coolest things I've seen in any low-level adventure.
On the rules-side, we get 2 new monsters, a new ritualistic spell, the cannibalism domain and 2 new items.
Conclusion:
Layout adheres to the two-column standard, the b/w-artworks are nice and formatting is, as far as I could glean, flawless. Editing is not, unfortunately: There are some minor glitches, that while not impeding the overall quality of the adventure, is the only thing that will sometimes rip you out of the brilliant writing. If you haven't gathered: That's my only point of criticism with regards to this adventure. You get an awesome piece of adventure writing, perhaps one of the best adventures ever released for 3.5, and a LOT of adventure. When PFRPG came along, this one was top-priority on my convert-list and both I and my players had a HUGE blast running this smart, well-crafted investigation chock-full with cool characters and disturbing details that are sure to be remembered for years to come. There simply aren't that many adventures out there that deserve the predicate "superb" and this is one of them - the enemies aren't too strong, but fight smart, the scenes are just plain awesome and the infiltration of the cultist hide-out rocks.
Hard.
This adventure gets the Endzeitgeist seal of approval and, for me, nit-picky as I usually am with regards to typos etc., a full 5 star-rating. If you're concerned about ~10 glitches over 58 pages of awesome adventure, detract half a star. If you haven't played it yet, give it a try. It's pleasantly different from almost any 1st-level adventure out there in both details, structure and genre. Smart players and ROLEplayers deserve more such adventures.
This pdf is 43 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 2 pages of advertisements, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving 35 pages of adventure, so let's check it out!
Layout adheres to the clear and concise 0one-games-two-column-standard, the pdf is extensively bookmarked and comes with free color-versions of the handouts (and broadsides that are put up throughout the city) in a separate pdf and also has its own conversion notes to make the adventure compatible with PFRPG. Editing is good - I only noticed one glitch.
This being an adventure review, SPOILERS will continue to abound, so potential players please jump to the conclusion and stop reading NOW.
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Still here?
All right! The PCs stumble across the body of Malkan Abberbaugh, who was supposedly murdered by wild animals in a park - not everything is as it seems, though, and the PCs will hit a brick wall of bureaucratic red tape by the army, who wants to keep the death under wraps. After having the corpse taken away, the PCs can track it to Grang's Crematorium, where they'll be met with a rather uncooperative fellow. Why? Well, turns out ol' Grang has turned to cannibalism and enjoys his meals with a gourmet ghoul. Yep, you heard it. Cool, isn't it? We get a map for the crematorium and once the PCs have infiltrated the place and analyze the corpse, they'll notice that both druids and their animals definitely are innocent of the murder and will continue to army ward, where Marcus Galwatty, a sergeant tries to block them and intimidate them to keep away from the investigation.
A full blown bar brawl can also see the PCs accused of murder and arrested and after asking around town in this free play-style sandboxy setting, the PCs will have encountered the legendary alchemist Mafurin and his coat-with-tails-wearing Troll Werewolf-bodyguard Hulg. Via the street urchin Eddie Gin or some other means, the PCs will meet a guy called Grosh One-Ear, who claims that a member of the Dragon Claws-gang has murdered Abberbaugh. A member of said gang will contact the PCs and claim that rogue members are responsible. After a short mini-crawl in the sewers (with its own map), the PCs will again be contacted by the Dragon Claw, who points them towards to true culprits, a subsection of the army called Skullcrackers that dominate illegal fight clubs in the residential ward. In this climate of racial tensions, they will venture into smuggler's tunnels to find a lost piece of jewelry for a member of a crossroads club serving a shrine spirit. Should they survive their trek into the subterranean tunnels, tehy'll have their final clue, the identity of the killer. In a cinematic and highly unusual finale, the PCs go to the fight club and take out the deadly dwarven wererat rogue and his henchmen while bets are flung on the outcome and the crowd is cheering - in any way, a cool and rather uncommon finale.
Conclusion:
This investigation is very interesting in the fact that it's not strictly linear and has several tools for the GM to keep it going in both the NPCs and the encounters. The adventure is fast-paced and has some cool, iconic backdrops and immediately sets a tone of mistrust and paranoia that will continue to spiral out of control during the course of the campaign arc. The NPCs and critters are sufficiently unique and cool and the adventure is uncommon enough to provide something different and thankfully humanoid-centric for the PCs to enjoy. The only weak point of the story is that the PCs should have a serious stake in the murder to not be disheartened by the red tape that is flung at them. My players would love that, but Some players might be annoyed. Diligence triumphs in the end, though, and the DM can always throw the PCs a bone with the plethora of NPCs integrated into the plot.
My final verdict will be 5 stars, a great adventure to kick off the road to revolution. Personally, I prefer "A Pound of Flesh", but you could always play that one after the Skullcrackers. :)
...as the PCs get, what they expect and the scenario is well-laid out.
However, I would have liked to see a more complex adaption of the "Undead Opera scenario" - i.e. as a Pathfinder module or as a part of an adventure path. Including some Phantom of the Opera references or any kind of imaginative twist.
This adventure is 64 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page advertisement, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving 57 pages for this installment of the Road to Revolution-saga.
This one is a special one for me, after all, it was the first review I ever wrote. It was uninformative, short and did not do this adventure any justice and today, finally, I’m revisiting this great piece!
This being an adventure-review, you will see A LOT OF SPOILERS from this point on, potential players should jump to my conclusion. I mean it, this being a mystery-adventure and a good one at that, you’d really spoil yourself a great treat.
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Still here?? SPOILERS ABOUND!!!
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All right, let’s delve in! When the PCs in part I of the Road to Revolution cracked down, hard, on the skullcrackers, the fighting should have stopped. Instead, the fight clubs as vents for the racial tensions have begun to pop up all around Azindralea like shrooms on a decaying trunk, codified and supposedly safer than before. Something stirs, though, and champions have begun to die in battles and accidents and thus, the PCs are contacted by an old acquaintance, Marcus Galwatty, the stone-walling army-bureaucrat/warrior from the last adventure who has received an Ehrenrood, a fighting stick that, via social and political pressure, forces him to fight soon, but he also knows that the set-up will result in his death, one way or the other.
Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, Galwatty asks the PCs to help him in his investigations and find the true mastermind behind the deaths, the fight clubs… and of course, save his hide. All that in just a couple of days, but thankfully, street urchin and information gatherer extraordinaire Eddie Gin is on the side of the PCs and will help them if they get stumped. Assuming the PCs want to help him (and a plethora of non-altruistic reasons are given as hooks), the investigation is on! It is here I should note that once again a whole set of broadsides as handouts are provided to bring the city to life.
The investigation is kicked off by the PCs looking for the suspects and informants Galwatty etc. and extensive information on how to get the PCs back on track and/or avoid investigative dead-ends. First of the suspects, a cruel money-lender named Mona who lairs in an Inthoso-den, including its very own, high-quality mini-map. What’s Inthoso? Well, it’s a hallucinogenic, synesthetical drug that can make for quite some interesting additional roleplaying encounters. Mona is definitely not a nice gal and not among the most cooperative suspects. Even worse, some of her answers might lead the PCs to suspect that something is amiss with her…
The next suspect’s trail leads to a butchering yard in a villa (again with a map) now occupied by a rather hostile gang, including a dire mongoose guard “dog” – the PCs will have to use their wits or stealth in order to save this particular suspect from the attentions of the gang – nice hostage situation included. The hostage, though, is disturbing – cowered in self-inflicted scab-marks that spell out dread warnings, the lingering sense of dread and something being amiss further intensifies.
From this rather creepy portent, we move on to, get this, a poetry-slam in a rather nice tavern against a former champion of the moon goddess! Ever did something like that in an adventure? Thought so! Even cooler: After the bantering, the PCs might find their 3rd suspect, shrunken and hiding in a tea-pot. Once again, good interrogation skills may provide another clue for the PCs and another, almost supernatural stonewall that seems to stupefy their every move.
Next up on the list in a mid-to high class brothel (including map), where diplomacy might get the PCs to a hot clue, finally – if they act smart, they’ll be pointed towards a certain tower, in which one Gentlemen Jimmy Gems is in the course of killing his latest offering to the mastermind behind this dread plot and drain her blood via an invisible pipe into the sewers. And yeah, birds sometimes perching atop it are mentioned! That is, if the PCs are truly superb – otherwise they’re in for a cool little parcours-like chase-scene against Jimmy, who is not to be trifled with…
The menagerie of cool interrogations and investigations continues with a potential bar-brawl in a legendary insurgent’s bar with Galwatty’s foe in the battle to come – who promptly tries to insult the PCs and, looking at the colorful sample-insults the pdf provides, I can definitely see him succeeding in provoking them. Hopefully they don’t miss a rather uncharacteristic lapse in his tough-man’s bearing.
If the PCs get stumped (or you want to make sure they realize not all is going well), an encounter with the now half-mad, nightmare-haunted Marcus is up any time the DM sees fit.
All while this investigation is happening, a huge array of modular hauntings and cool attacks can happen and be sprinkled in, gradually building tension – from ghostly nursery rhymes to mime-monks attacking, up until the PCs had enough investigation. Once that happens, they will have encounter a Galwatty who has fallen prey to a cursed attack and can’t fight. Thanks to alter self, once again the PCs might have to save someone by climbing into the fight club’s ring – even better, depending on the course of the adventure and the initial hook used to get the PCs involved, motivations are given aplenty – commendable in adventure-writing! Unfortunately for the PCs, their trusted side-kick has been kidnapped and they’ll have to act fast to save the poor street-urchin – a rather gruesome letter by the crimson medusa that wants the PCs away from the crimson cup, where the fight will take place.
Part II sees the PCs infiltrate said locale (a map once again is provided) – that is, a part of them will. While their employer has his own agenda, one of them will fight in a force-cage against his opponent while not only the crimson medusa poses a threat, but the mysterious hooded lady, agent to the villainous mastermind, uses a potion by a quite legendary alchemist to turn half the people into slavering dog-man-things out for blood – carnage, confusion and a worthy battle are likely to ensue, as is the first fault of the hooded woman - a direct link to said alchemist and subsequently the chance to catch her and get the final, crucial piece of evidence they need.
This leads us into the furious finale of this adventure and once again, I’m calling for a spoiler-alert. Even if you ignored my first one, please, if you have any chance of playing this adventure, don’t spoil the revelation.
SUPER SPOILER ALERT
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Still here? Ok.
The enemy, as it turns out, is the whole mansion, brought to life via a dread tragedy that the players, by piercing together clues from their investigation and the finale, might destroy. Brute force won’t help them that much and the supremely creepy, smart collection of encounters with the mansion, while navigating it, coupled with flashbacks that offer some discrepancies to their findings. While at first the true nature might not be evident, unscrupulous players who fail to (or don’t want to) defeat the mansion can ally themselves with this dread foe. Among the haunted house climaxes I’vre read so far, and I’ve read a lot, this one ranks supreme at the best one. The final pages of the adventure are taken up by discussing its conclusion, giving huge lists of abilities for creatures like the main villain as well as the remaining handout.
It should be noted that the handouts can be downloaded for free in a full color version. The PFRPG-conversion for this adventure is free as well.
Slave Pits of Absalom starts off with a well-presented "Damsel-in-distress-plot" and gets really cool once on the way. I'm a sucker for the three Is: Investigation, Interrogation and Infiltration. And any DM worth his salt may extend the basic plot and scenes to a bigger adventure.
(It's inspiring and you may find unofficial extra goodies on Lou's Blog at
http://rpgaggression.blogspot.com/2008_11_01_archive.html.)
Don't be fooled: The battles are fun as well, there is a lot of room to swashbuckle and fight smart. And the axewielding boss for once deserves his name, although I don't like the decision to make him less lethal in the revision - I'll stick to the original: Hooray for bosses that actually kill off some PCs. However: To each his own, everyone is free to stick to the weaker version.
Why then 4 Stars and not 5? Well, although the Faction Missions are fun and really well-integrated, the overall plot is not too exciting.
I'm excited to see more from Lou - and more infiltration. ;)
An aristocratic lady of dubious virtue, a lost child, dark hallways and the spirits of the dead.
However, the best thing about "Black Waters" are the emotions it may evoke when run properly.
My only quarrel with this scenario is, that it is a Pathfinder Society Scenario - One could have crafted a regular module from the ideas. I would have loved to see more details on the somewhat touching story.
First, let me state that I was not that impressed with the scenarios 1-4, though I liked Silent Tide.
This one, however, is simply a blast. It could easily be adapted to CoC, Masque of the red Death or similar settings, as it succeeds in threading the thin line between fantasy and pulp horror.
Plus: Nick Logue delivers a great atmosphere.
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