Set within adventureaweek's beautifully-developed campaign world (but capable of being transferred to an equivalent wild and chilly part of your own setting), this adventure starts with the disappearance of some villagers, sent to investigate some strange goings-on but who never returned. The starting point is simple: the village mayor who sent the original party asks the characters to find out what happened to them.

To complete this task, the characters will have to travel through a dangerous wood: not without reason are you advised to stick to the path and only travel during daylight hours. Those who ignore such advice rarely return.. and the same might be true of unwary characters. Fortunately there's a cabin where they can break their journey, and maybe find out more and get some help to complete their mission.

The ultimate goal is to reach a burial mound, which is where the odd activities were observed. Rather neatly, the background and history of this place is presented in such a way that the GM can share it with players who like rich background stories, or leave it aside and get on with the action as preferred. As it is, misunderstandings and a lack of awareness of a local threat led to the original problem, and will catch out any characters who do not pay attention to their surroundings. In an elegant turn, even thorough knowledge of the background of the burial mound will not help!

The burial mound is described in evocative detail, with plenty of information presented clearly to enable the GM to run the exploration effectively and with an eye to excitement. A bit of thought as well as combat ability will be necessary to negotiate this structure; while - due in part to various misunderstandings - many of the people encountered will attack on sight!

Overall it is a nice adventure well-embedded into its setting, with plenty to challenge and entertain those players willing to enter into the spirit of a spot of tomb-raiding. It leads on nicely to the next adventure in the series, too.

This pdf is 39 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 2 pages of SRD, leaving 35 ages of content, so let's check this out!

This being an adventure-review, the following contains SPOILERS, so potential players may wish to jump to the conclusion.

Still here? All right! The PCs are still in the very cool frontier-town of Rybalka, at the edge of a clash of civilizations between the Klavek Kingdom and the Vikmordere barbarians/vikings. The latter seem to have recently completed a ritual at some burial mounds and the troops sent there to slay the barbarians have not reported back - it's up to the PCs to travel there, slay the Vikmordere and rescue any survivors. Or so is the briefing - on their way to the mound, the PCs encounter a hut (perhaps known from "Devil in Dark Wood") and its inhabitant, legendary Cual Beartooth. The barbarian should prove to be their savoir, for they are beset by a for beyond their capabilities -a devilish Kyton seeks to slay them and their escort. With the aid of the veteran warrior, they may succeed in vanquishing the dread creature and also learn of the cool salves the barbarian can brew to facilitate survival in the hostile woods. Both Cual and their escort may provide different facets of the background story and could also be used to display the clash of cultures between the Vikmordere and the Klavekians - his hut is a kind of neutral ground, after all. Inside, they find a survivor of the massacre at the burial mound, unfortunately for now, unable to communicate what exactly has happened.

Once the PCs reach the burial mound, they're in for a treat - a detailed, beautiful one-page map, containing a drawing of totem poles, funerary flags, a drawing of the entry, an example picture of stacking caskets etc. This page is AWESOME, as the drawings drive home the differences in cultures and serve as a nice introduction to the burial mound of Loi'Tok. Inside the burial mound, the PCs can find an altar containing a secret mechanism to open a hidden door, including a riddle, but unfortunately no clue apart from trial and error on how to operate the mechanism. If the PCs prevail, they may find the tomb of 8 legendary lords and even open their respective sarcophagi - if they succeed at another puzzle. Again, though, no guide-line or clue is presented to help the PCs figure out the correct solution, though the procedure per se is not too complex. If they fail, however, they will have to brave the undead lord in question, skeletal champions that may give them a run for their money. There's also a neat little tie-in here with "Crypt of the Sun Lord" - bearer of his blade have it easier here.
After checking out and potentially looting/desecrating the tombs, we return to the task at hand - finding out what happened to the lost patrol. Unfortunately, at this time (or earlier) a squad of Vikmodere may enter the tomb as well - to look for their missing comrades. For the true culprit beyond the massacre here belongs to neither ethnicity: A crab-like beast with paralytic tentacles called Kra'Tah makes its lair in the mound, guarded by swarms of POISONOUS FIREFLIES. AWESOME! In the hand of a good DM, with good timing, this revelation may come as an interesting surprise and even provide an angle for a non-combat oriented resolution with the Vikmordere, though that's not per se presumed by the module. And yes, I consider both this boss beast (which may act sooner, depending on the stealth of the PCs) and the fireflies to be good ideas. If the PCs do a really good job, they may even unearth a sacred pendant of as of yet unknown powers. Upon their return to the hut of Crual and their rendez-vous with the Klavekian soldier there, the module ends.

Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, apart from very minor glitches, nothing detracted from the quality of writing or the crunch. Layout adheres to adventureaweek.com's 2-column full-color standard and provide boxes with icons to show e.g. read-aloud text, denote traps, skill-checks etc. There is no background-less, printer-friendly b/w-version, though. The pdf comes with extensive bookmarks. As with other modules by adventureaweek.com, the cartography is STUNNING and the map with its images serves to greatly enhance the flavor of the unique civilizations presented in the modules. Indeed, a sense of ancient roots suffuses the module and serves to evoke the classic feeling of exploring strange and unfathomable places.

The slow development of the clash of cultures starts to build up and I'm looking forward to seeing where it's going. The writing is of consistently high quality and at least one monster had my grin my evil DM-grin, which is awesome. On the downside, while I love the puzzles, at least some idea( skill-check, parchment with cryptic hints, whatever) to help solve the puzzles in any way but trial-and-error would have been nice. In contrast to its direct predecessor, I didn't find any logic glitch herein and actually enjoyed this straight-forward dungeon-crawl that actually comes with a nice story - not a revolutionary one, but there's a good reason for the PCs to explore the complex and some nice setting of the stage for the things to come with the secret amulet the PCs can find and the promise that they will return to this place.

All in all, I consider "Champion's Rest" to be a solid module with an interesting cultural flair that manages to evoke a sense of frontier-exploration in frozen regions and pairs it with interesting components to develop. All in all, I'll settle for a solid verdict of 3.5 stars and I'd round up...were it not for other publishers and the amount of quality content they provide for a lower price - e.g. Run Amok Games' "Underdelve Menace" is 57 pages long, PLUS a 26-page map-booklet. In full color. With player-friendly handout versions. Try as I might, I have to take that into account and thus will settle on a final verdict of "only" 3 stars with a recommendation if what I described feels only remotely appealing to you.

Endzeitgeist out.