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Pathfinder Legends—Rise of the Runelords #2: The Skinsaw Murders

4.00/5 (based on 6 ratings)
Pathfinder Legends—Rise of the Runelords #2: The Skinsaw Murders

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The town of Sandpoint used to be such a safe place to live—until the scarecrows started walking.

A series of grisly murders point to an undead killer. With Merisiel missing, Valeros, Harsk, and Ezren must track the mysterious Skinsaw Man back to his haunted lair. Can they survive vengeful spirits, necrotic guardians, and assassin cults to discover the secrets of the ancient rune carved into the corpses of the slain? Or will death find them as they explore the deadly streets of Magnimar?

Pathfinder Legends audio dramas adapt the world and characters of the best-selling Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Each episode runs about an hour and features a cast of professional actors, sound effects, and music that immerse you into the dangerous and exciting world of Pathfinder!

Audio Samples

Download the trailer! (3.4 MB MP3/zip)

Download Iesha sample (1.7 MB MP3/zip)

Download The Skinsaw Man sample (1.6 MB MP3/zip)

Download Xanesha sample (2.4 MB MP3/zip)

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4.00/5 (based on 6 ratings)

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What's There is Great.

3/5 —

NO SPOILERS

The second chapter of the audio adaptation of the Rise of the Runelords adventure path contains the same strengths and weaknesses as the first chapter. On the downside, it's rather short for how much it costs (just over an hour, and then 10 minutes of inexplicable music) and the battle scenes are hard to follow because there's no narration. It's not an "audio book," it's more of an "audio play" and there are some things that are very hard to describe without a narrator. On the upside, I enjoyed the voice acting (there's some genuinely funny moments through good delivery) and I thought the script was really well done; although some parts of the adventure path were cut, the changes were done elegantly and everything flowed together nicely. The music and sound effects were appropriately creepy when necessary, and several scenes were exciting even if hard to picture. I think I would sum this one up as I did the first chapter: worth getting if you are a hardcore Rise of the Runelords fan, or if you can find them cheap (like as the free sample on an audiobook streaming service).

SPOILERS

In the written adventure path, The Skinsaw Murders is a fantastic and memorable piece of RPG writing. The PCs have to solve a series of grisly murders, brave a truly haunted house, do battle with the grotesque and downright scary murderer, then travel to the metropolis of Magnimar to do battle with a whole cult of serial killers before a final battle against the cult's master atop a crumbling clock tower. The audio adaptation cleverly intertwines the early parts of the written adventure, by having Merisiel investigate the rumors of "walking scarecrows" terrorizing the countryside while Valeros, Harsk, and Ezren investigate the grisly murder at the saw mill. Merisiel is the target of the Skinsaw Man's obsession in this version, and she gets kidnapped and taken to the Misgivings. Much of what the written version has in store for the characters in Foxglove Mansion is omitted (including most of the haunts, the stuff with Iesha, etc.), but the big confrontation with Aldern Foxglove/The Skinsaw Man/The Hurter is fantastically done. The split personalities are each given a distinct voice, and new listeners will be surprised at the revelation that all three are part of the same person.

The audio version skips most of the heroes time in Magnimar, which is disappointing because I would have liked to see its take on characters like Mayor Grobaras, the cool monuments, the Irespan, etc. Instead, the audio version jumps directly to the Shadow Clock (placing Justice Ironbriar there) and the confrontation with Xaliasa. There's very little description of the clocktower or the dangerous ascent the heroes would have to face, and there's no Scarecrow (flesh golem) at all. It's okay, but not nearly as cool as it is in the written version. The audio version does end with a nice lead-in to chapter three, however.

All in all, it's good--there just needs to be more of it. It's like reading the Cliff Notes version of a great novel--you get the gist, but it's not entirely satisfying.

Best in the Series

5/5 —

An excellent mix of terror and mystery, I was kept on the edge of my seat the whole time. As a character focus on Merisiel, this story really shines. You feel like you know her very well pretty early and the connection grows throughout the story. The danger feels very real, and I found myself sighing with relief at the end of encounters.

I don't know how the Adventure Path ran, but this is a terrifically told and paced audio drama. I hope to see more like this one.

Brilliant

5/5 —

Just sat down and listened to this one. They are really awesome. As entertainment I love them, as game aids and ideas for incorporating into your games they are invaluable. I hope the series will continue with the second path.

A pleasure to hear.

4/5 —

The installment handles some strange story elements with grace. The full production audio vs merely reading is a one sided fight. No audio book comes close in immersion. Keep em coming paizo and big finish.

Entertaining and well done!

4/5 —

This is an entertaining audiobook. The voice acting is decent and the sound track and effects are very well done. It seems way too short, but I guess I can live with that. It would be nice if there were more extras included (this one included a magazine that featured Big Finish Productions) - like a PDF of some of the extras that were in the adventures (History of Thassilon, etc). But if that's the worst I can find to complain about, then I really have no complaints.

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Webstore Gninja Minion
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Now available for preorder! Digital versions and subscription information will be forthcoming.
Webstore Gninja Minion
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Samples added!
1 person marked this as a favorite.

The Skinsaw Man just made me poop myself :(

I didn't know this existed! So cool!

EDIT: looked up the first one, too! Wow! So incredibly awesome! I want all the things!

Legit keen for the digital preorder to turn up so I can get all up in part II. Been craving it since I finished Part I

I'm anxious for the digital download too! Loved the first one and hate waiting... Lol

Hate to be a pain, but when is the digital download coming?

It says 28th May at the top of the page.
Bob790 wrote:
It says 28th May at the top of the page.

Thanks for that, I feel like a right muppet.

NerdOfTheYear wrote:
Bob790 wrote:
It says 28th May at the top of the page.
Thanks for that, I feel like a right muppet.

Well you can't have one.

But seriously, it's easy to overlook, I'm glad I could help.

I wonder if anyone can provide some technical help. I got this and wanted to put it on my Ipod, so I "imported CD to itunes". The trouble is, it dumped it right alongside episode one (so I now have two track 01s, two track 02s, etcetera all the way to two track 19s. All by "unknown artist". The other CDs I've put on my ipod are all clearly labelled with artist and track name and so forth.

Is there some way I can import these CDs so that they'll automatically categorise themselves by episode and label themselves? (Or have I misunderstood - am I not supposed to be importing them in this way?) Technical words of one syllable or less would be apreciated in any reply.
Steve Geddes wrote:

I wonder if anyone can provide some technical help. I got this and wanted to put it on my Ipod, so I "imported CD to itunes". The trouble is, it dumped it right alongside episode one (so I now have two track 01s, two track 02s, etcetera all the way to two track 19s. All by "unknown artist". The other CDs I've put on my ipod are all clearly labelled with artist and track name and so forth.

Is there some way I can import these CDs so that they'll automatically categorise themselves by episode and label themselves? (Or have I misunderstood - am I not supposed to be importing them in this way?) Technical words of one syllable or less would be apreciated in any reply.

Usually that data isn't stored on the CDs anymore, media players like iTunes and Windows Media Player work by going out to the net with some identifiers on the album and use those to retrieve the track info etc... I'm not sure exactly how it does it, never really cared enough to check what it's using to verify, but if there's multiple versions of an album you can get some funky results... there's two versions of the Resident Evil: Apocalypse soundtrack, which have one or two differing tracks, and WMP is convinced that I have the different version.

So, at a guess, because this isn't a standard music album, Big Finish probably haven't uploaded the details to whatever databases are checked. I had a similar issue when I purchased and ripped a copy of Tom Stoppard's audio drama Darkside recently, had to name all the tracks and set the artist details manually.

Ah, okay thanks. So I'll just whiz through and rename these then the third one will at least be identifiable. I was just concerned I was going to end up with a mountain of identically named tracks.

Cheers.

Any updated on the subscription package?
Webstore Gninja Minion
BoilerBrown wrote:
Any updates on the subscription package?

None at this time.

Webstore Gninja Minion

Trailer added!
Paizo Employee
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Listening to the Skinsaw Man here makes me wish I'd had listened to these before I started running Rise of the Runelords. Very nice!

And, of course, by "nice" I mean "creepy." As it should be.

Cheers!
Landon
Webstore Gninja Minion
Landon Winkler wrote:
And, of course, by "nice" I mean "creepy." As it should be.

Indeed!

When will the digital download version be available?

It says "Download Unavailable". Any idea when it will become available?

Thanks!
Webstore Gninja Minion

Should be available now—sorry about that!

I have to say that one thing I'm disappointed about is there not being a Audiobook version in the download. :(

I loved having the .m4b version with the first book. Any chance of that coming still for this one?
The Exchange

Ugh, why is this in a different format than the last one? OCD filing system overload!
Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

We'll look into it.
Webstore Gninja Minion

Unfortunately, the lead tech for Big Finish unexpectedly passed away, and there are some rough edges as things get transitioned over to a new technician. Please bear with us as we get things figured out regarding this.
Owner - House of Books and Games LLC

Oh!

I thought I missed something with subscriptions. So with no subscriptions, does that mean I need to buy all the digital versions if I want them too?

Eeep.
Webstore Gninja Minion
gbonehead wrote:

Oh!

I thought I missed something with subscriptions. So with no subscriptions, does that mean I need to buy all the digital versions if I want them too?

Eeep.

The digital releases are separate from the physical CD, so as of right now, they will need to be two separate purchases.

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I bought the 1st digital episode of this series due to the discounted price as I find the regular price too steep and resigned myself to being content with just having the first one. Though it truly leaves me wanting more as I have not played nor read the original AP so I have no idea of the plot details.

I was overjoyed then when the 2nd episode offered another discounted price. The 2nd one has a much better story than the first one. I could not pinpoint at first why I felt the first episode seems wanting. The voice acting and production quality are truly excellent after all. I have to hand it that paizo seems to have truly picked out a high calibre production outfit. I don't know who the big name actors & actresses in the voice drama field but I bet the ones in this series are those ones or at the very least at par with them.

In any case even with these excellent voice acting, I seem to sense that the first episode was not "up there yet" so to speak; like as if these voice actors and actresses were underused.

And lo!In the skinsaw murders,i think finally this episode has hit the perfect spot! I believe this should always be the benchmark going forward for this series. The characterizations are way better,valeros,merisiel,ezren,harsk,even lisa the ghoul,and of course the "your lordship triumvirate".Bear in mind that I have no idea about this AP and the reveal at the end was one of the most satisfying scenes I've ever enjoyed! This is the perfect example of one great actor playing one great character.

I do hope that the next ones in the series would have the same good story as I've said the voice players are of high caliber already. They deserve to act out the same high calibre of a story.

Thanks again Paizo for always looking out for excellent quality in the product lines you branch out to. You truly are here for the long haul, methinks.

Has there been any progress on the subscription front? I nearly forgot to add issue #3 so it will (hopefully) ship with my July subs.
Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Sorry—not yet!
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