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Kobold Press / Pathfinder RPG

Tales of the Old Margreve (PFRPG)

4.90/5 (based on 11 ratings)
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Put out the fire, shoulder your pack, and enter the deep woods...

Tales of the Old Margreve contains 8 eerie forest adventures for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game in a unique Old World setting inspired by the medieval folktales and superstitions of Eastern Europe. Its authors include Paizo regulars Tim Connors and Richard Pett, among others.

Here in the Old Margreve Forest, heroes trek past crumbled griffon towers, over stiles and shepherds' fields, to where the lonely road thins and branches under the dark canopy of the trees. Deep in the forest's misty hollows, you may hear the rusalka's song rising over the crackle of a midnight fire or glimpse the white flash of a deer centaur's tail as it vanishes between the trees

In this place, those who ignore the old ways are never seen again.

    Inside you'll find:
  • 8 adventures for player characters of 1st to 10th level
  • Dozens of Margreve sites, inhabitants and adventure hooks
  • 12 unsettling new monsters
  • New spells and incantations
  • Unexpected powers wielded by the living forest itself!

Whether you choose to take your players into the legendary forest between the realm of the vampire knights and the clockwork city of Zobeck, or cherry-pick its contents for your own campaign world, Tales of the Old Margreve will challenge your players to earn a place in fireside tales.

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Old witches and creepy forest

4/5 —

Travelers through the the Old Margreve forest stop at the midpoint of their journey at Eye of the Forest Coaching Inn. The curious always take a peek inside the cast iron oven in the center of the inn. What you see might set you to wondering if those Grimm fairy tales are true!

Each one of the adventures in this product are a treat to read. Riffing off old world stories of witches, enchanted maidens and wolves that devour little girls wearing red riding hoods, these stories are fresh looks at tales we all know and love. A GM presenting these adventures to their players will be able to delight, and yes, even frighten them a little. After all, the players might *think* they know the ending, but adventures in the Old Margreve rarely turn out the way anyone expects.

As a sourcebook to adventuring in dark woods, it's also a great resource. There are locations and NPCs and a host of story hooks, in addition to the prepared adventures. Best of all, though, is the bestiary. Creatures of slavic lore are fully explained and statted out for your use.

The adventures can form the spine of a campaign or serve as the backdrop to adventures of your own creation using the tools within. Either way, this book makes the dark forests dangerous again ... what else could a GM ask for?

It Really is that Good

5/5 —

I'm not going to launch into a long detailed review, as other reviewers have written ample descriptions of what's in the book. I will however testify that is really is that good. This is a must-buy.

While the adventures don't use the Margreve itself as an entity, they are all solid, interesting and playable. I would run every last one as written, which is unusual for me.

My only upset is that almost the entire book is in b&w, including the maps. I would like the option to have the art in color, especially the maps. If I want to print in b&w and lose detail, that should be my choice, not the publisher's.

Since it is in black and white, get the PDF and save some dough at the printer's. 4.5 stars.

A stellar compilation of adventures

5/5 —

This adventure anthology/sourcebook is 113 pages long, 1 page front cover, 2 pages editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving 107 pages of content, so let's take a look at it!

The anthology sets the mood immediately via a two-page short fable about fey and beer and offers thus a great lead-in to the gazetteer-section on the Margreve, the ancient forest of Midgard, where both the wonder, strangeness, creepiness and awe of the forest come back to live and intermingle with the cruel Germanic and Slavic folktales. Both attitudes of the folk, their old ways and rites and customs and the global powers of the forest are detailed in a prime example of concise and flavorful writing. The culmination of this section is both the advice on how to play the "character" Margreve, different takes on it and a plethora of adventure hooks of the highest caliber for your perusal. The detailed subsections of the forest, ranging from creepy shadowfeyish to creepy dream-like and creepy primeval offer a vast plethora of potential ideas for DMs especially and even players on a minor scale. I guarantee that you'll find inspiration in these pages if your creativity hasn't completely dried up. Have I mentioned that e.g. Baba Yaga is a firm and unique part of Margrevian mythology?

On a rules-perspective, we also get a whole section on how magic works in the Margreve (subtly different, including visual clues) and mechanically different for those not versed in the Old Ways. We also get the obligatory part on new magic and, while this section more often than not, elicits yawns from me, let me assure you that each and every one of the 6 spells herein is pure killer and rocks - hard. Even better, for people like me who enjoy the primeval and dangerous flair of incantations, we get three new ones - Awesome!

Next up is the bestiary and in the fine tradition of Open Design, all of them, I repeat, all of them, are killer, no filler. From the Ala storm-witches, the supremely creepy children of the briar, the noble deer-centaurs, green hussars, undead mylings and rusalka brides, the extremely disturbing sap demons up to the majestic and lustful zmey, each and every critter herein has several unique abilities. Almost all of them feature their own unique artworks and concluding the oomphteenth time I read this section, I'm still all up in arms about the quality. If all bestiaries were of this quality, I could put my virtual reviewer's pen down.

All right, that's as far as I can go without spoilers, as now begins the adventure section of the book. Potential players, please stop reading NOW, SPOILERS abound!
...

Still here?
...

All right, the first adventure, "Hollow" by one of the masters of horror, Richard Pett, pits the 1st-level PCs and a tiny hamlet under their command against both mad animals and the dread harvester of the singing tree, the hollow man. The Scythe-wielding CR 5 Hollow Man makes for a very disturbing enemy, as PCs of their level don't truly stand a chance against it: While it is harvesting the heads of townsfolk and not interested in the PCs per se, they have a strict timeline in which they can try to stop the deadly enemy and finally confront and destroy the tree adorned with decapitated heads, which coincidentally sings unperceivable through the skulls and thus drives the animals of the forest insane. An awesome, smart and creepy introductory adventure!

Next up is "The Honey Queen", a completely different fare: Dreamlike and somewhat reminiscent of the Alice-novels, Jonathan McAnulty weaves a yarn of excellent narrative quality: The PCs are hired to acquire a special kind of honey that supposedly prolongs your life. Problem is, though, that the awakened queen bee lairs around hallucinogenic flowers (necessary for the honey) and that she does trade exclusively with the scáthsidhe, the shadow fey. As spokesperson and foe to the PCs on their way through the awesome, creepy hive is the adopted stepdaughter of the queen, a girl in temporal stasis who has developed the power to use bee-swarms as surrogate bodies. The PCs have to act smart to bring the girl back to life, get the honey and brave the bee-hive-dungeon. This adventure also rewards non-lethal problem-solving and can end on a plethora of notes, depending on the PC's actions.

"Challenge of the Fang" by Dan Voyce has two excellent adventures to follow up on and succeeds - Challenge of the Fang can have severe repercussions for the PCs if they fail: Every 3 generations, the battle between wolf and man is fought again, in a dread ritual that will determine whether wolf or man reigns supreme and earns the favor of the Margreve. How is the outcome determined? Well, think "Little Red Ridin' Hood" with the PCs and the wolves trying to get to the red-cape-wearing girl first, including a very fairy-tale like, cool series of tests, portents that come true etc. It's hard to capture the mood of a fairy-tale in an adventure and Dan Voyce succeeded with grace - One of the best takes on the material I've seen - sufficiently close for the players to get it and far enough and creatively different to make it challenging and surprising.

"The Griffon Hatchling Heist" by Michael Furlanetto is a nice change of pace, from the grim and fantastic to an adventure that could very well have your players smile: When they are being approached by a housecat, they may very well have one of the most unlikely quest-givers ever - the housecat turns out to be the polymorphed griffon-leader Lesharrkk, who wants the PCs to infiltrate a tower where she and her brethren once nested and which is now the base of a huge amount of bugbears led by ogres and a cyclops. The PCs should get in, take the eggs and get them out before they hatch - of course, just as the PCs reclaim the griffon's offspring they begin to hatch and getting them out without any one of them being perceived by the critters - after all, PCs probably don't want to raise griffons...or do they? Depending on the amount of griffons saved, whether they consider the PCs their mother, Lesharrkk might make for a cool ally in future adventures. All in all, a great change of pace and one that made me smile!
After the rather light-hearted heist, we get a disturbing race against time in Tim Connor's "Gall of the Spider Crone". When the PCs enter a tavern featuring a lot of Kariv, they quickly realize that the gypsies have something to hide: Just prior to the PCs arrival, one of the legendary spider-crones has stumbled into the inn and, while morally dubious, suffers from a huge gall that, in a disturbing perversion of pregnancy, is eating up the crone from within - operation seems to be not an option and the desperate crone offers the PCs the same rewards as the Kariv to embark on a race against time to procure the means to save her from one of her sisters. What she does not mention is, that temporary possession is a part of the cure... As the PCs embark on a stormy hunt through the trails of the forest, they are hounded by various complications before finally arriving at a spider-legged home clinging to a huge vine across a canyon. In order to return in time, the PCs will have to use the spider-legged house to navigate the Margreve back to the inn, save the crone and kill the ala that will burst from the gall. The iconic usage of the spider-house to travel back to the inn alone is worth playing the adventure - another winner!

Part II in the product discussion.

Great add on to my campaign

5/5 —

There are several very good reviews already. I'll just say I have gotten great use out of this. Players have found the added adventures making the woods even scarier and strange then the Kingmaker Adventure path had them. A great addition!!!

Perfect for me

5/5 —

I'm in the process of making a campaign centered around a border town on the edge of a vast wilderness. This wilderness will contain - ultimately - a doorway between this realm and the Fey(wild) that must be closed. Sort of like a PFRPG Buffy series. Anyway, these adventures fit in perfectly. I find myself wanting to use most if not all of them at some point.

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Can we get a hint of what this is supposed to be about? Or in otherwords, to the uninformed, what is Old Margeve?
CWenzler, Creator of Sarunia wrote:
Or in otherwords, to the uninformed, what is Old Margeve?

A big OLD Forest in the default setting of Midnight - there's more about this

Go to link.
Scarab Sages
CWenzler, Creator of Sarunia wrote:
Can we get a hint of what this is supposed to be about? Or in otherwords, to the uninformed, what is Old Margeve?

The Old Margreve is a forest north of Zobeck in the World of Midgard, Open Design's (aka Kobold Quarterly) world.

Tales of the Old Margreve was a patronage project focused on the forest and short adventures therein. The book is an adventure anthology with 35 pages of setting information and 8 adventures (each about 8000 words long). It utilizes the Pathfinder rules.
Scarab Sages
dafaddu wrote:
CWenzler, Creator of Sarunia wrote:
Or in otherwords, to the uninformed, what is Old Margeve?

A big OLD Forest in the default setting of Midnight - there's more about this

Go to link.

:D Midnight is a different world put out by FFG.

Paizo Employee Director of Narrative

I'm sure this product entry will be updated soon, but until then...here's the entry on the Kobold Quarterly site.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Hm, isn't this a patronage project? Why is it for sale on Paizo?
Scarab Sages

Because the Patronage model has evolved to the point where the Patrons help craft the book, get first crack at buying it, and then the book goes up for sale to the general public. Sunken Empires (and the related Shore to the Sea) was a patronage project. Coliseum Morpheuon, by Rite Publishing, is another example. There are others.
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber

I'm definitely biased, as I'm a patron, but this adventure anthology is awesome. I ran a few playtests and they were a blast. I can't wait to get my physical copy. My only regret is my current campaign is too high of level to utilize them.

If you want your players to be afraid of forests again, pick this up.
Scarab Sages

Some information not on that OD Link...

Authors include: Tim and Eileen Connors, Michael Furlanetto, Jonathan McAnulty, Ben McFarland, Richard Pett, Steven Robert, and Dan Voyce.

The Eight Adventures are:
Hollow
The Honey Queen
Challenge of the Fang
The Griffon Hatchling Heist
Gall of the Spider Queen
Blood and Thorns
Grandmother's Fire
The Lustful Dragon
Sovereign Court
2 people marked this as a favorite.

I was a patron and I contributed little but my cash.

I spent most of my time exhaling slowly and muttering: "That is awesome."
Scarab Sages
GeraintElberion wrote:

I was a patron and I contributed little but my cash.

I spent most of my time exhaling slowly and muttering: "That is awesome."

Me too!

Silver Crusade

I've been hankering for a foresty sandbox to fiddle around with.

Watching and waiting!
Scarab Sages

Want to play the Margreve before it hits your hot little hands?
Contributor
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Tim and Wolfgang were kind enough to invite me along to pitch for this anthology after I briefly escaped James Jacob's Freelancer's Grammar Punishment Cellar a few months ago. I hope you'll check out the excellent adventures here in this wonderfully spooky place, especially with the print edition now up for sale.

My own contribution, Hollow, should ensure your PCs should have to endure a few troubling nights without sleep and that's merely the begining of their adventures in the old forest...

Knock, knock.

Knock, knock.

Don't answer the door after dark.

Huzzah!
Rich
Sovereign Court
GeraintElberion wrote:

I was a patron and I contributed little but my cash.

I spent most of my time exhaling slowly and muttering: "That is awesome."

That seems to be happening fairly often to me too ...

Dark Archive RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32
Richard Pett wrote:

My own contribution, Hollow, should ensure your PCs should have to endure a few troubling nights without sleep and that's merely the begining of their adventures in the old forest...

Knock, knock.

Knock, knock.

Don't answer the door after dark.

Stitch well your scary Wood Ward effigy people and hope The Hollow Man won't come looking for your head! ... "Hey Rich, is that one looking at us?"

The Exchange Kobold Press
1 person marked this as a favorite.

I didn't write any of this setting material, and I'm completely knocked out by its level of detail, playability, and --- how to put this? --- deep magic. Tim and Eileen Connors led a very capable crew into imagining the forest the way I've always thought of it: dangerous, mysterious, full of awe and wonder.

The living forest sections, the incantations and new spells, the customs, the central/eastern european bestiary. It all works.

I'm hopelessly biased, of course, but I'm curious to see the first reviews.
Liberty's Edge

Sounds very cool! I love interesting forest settings ...
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

I wonder, how is "Margreve" pronounced?
Silver Crusade

Is it "margrave" or "margreve"? I've seen margrAve before, but never margrEve...
uriel222 wrote:

Is it "margrave" or "margreve"? I've seen margrAve before, but never margrEve...

With audo sample! (For MargrAve at least)

edit: that quote definitely had a link when I quoted...?^^

Errata versions just hit the inbox and print versions are in, you can grab this now! I'm certainly biased, but this one came out great.

-Ben.
The Exchange Kobold Press

It's a proper name for a feature of the landscape, not a noble title (Margrave AKA Margraf).

Pronounced MAR-greev, at least at my table.

Print versions have shipped for all preorders to project patrons.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Wolfgang Baur wrote:
Print versions have shipped for all preorders to project patrons.

Oh, wait, patrons get a print version? Or how does that work now, as previously we had to go to lulu for that?

Scarab Sages

There was an email sent ut a couple of weeks back for any print orders. It was extra over the original charge, but patrons recieved a discount.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Wicht wrote:
There was an email sent ut a couple of weeks back for any print orders. It was extra over the original charge, but patrons recieved a discount.

Hmm, I must have missed that. Ah, well.

The Exchange Kobold Press

I could swear I saw your name on the stack of pre-orders that shipped yesterday, but I might be mistaken....

In any case, the print version should be available here at Paizo shortly.
Sovereign Court
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Missed it, too, due to being in Australia for three weeks. But luckily this time around, additional print copies are going to be available...
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Wolfgang Baur wrote:
I could swear I saw your name on the stack of pre-orders that shipped yesterday, but I might be mistaken....

Lol, you are right, I did order that back in October.. I must really be getting old...

Anyway, Wolfgang, thanks to you and Shelly for sending the discount code again! Sorry to trouble you. :)
Dark Archive
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

It sounds very cool.
Liberty's Edge

This sounds fantastic and would work perfectly with my Kingmaker campaign

Specifically

Spoiler:

in the woods near/around the old elven keep in RRR.

I have a question: how is art within? Is it full color or b&w, and how many pages is the book?

Thanks.
Robert
Scarab Sages
Adventure Path Charter Subscriber
Robert Brambley wrote:

This sounds fantastic and would work perfectly with my Kingmaker campaign

Specifically
** spoiler omitted **

I have a question: how is art within? Is it full color or b&w, and how many pages is the book?

Thanks.
Robert

Yes, I plan to use it there as well.

The Exchange Kobold Press

It's B+W art within (we don't have Paizo's budget, more's the pity).

The Tales book is 110 pages long, and packed pretty tight. Tim "Siege of the Spider Eaters" Connors and Richard "Sound of 1,000 Screams" Pett worked pretty hard to pack it FULL of material.
Liberty's Edge
Wolfgang Baur wrote:
It's B+W art within (we don't have Paizo's budget, more's the pity).

Nothing wrong with good BW art!!!

Liberty's Edge
Marc Radle wrote:


Nothing wrong with good BW art!!!

I agree - but it does make the choice easier for me to go for the PDF or dead tree version.

W/ Color I usually don't go the PDF route. I can print out a PDF of B&W pretty easily - or at least the pages I'm going to use at the time.

Going to make my purchase now. Thanks for the info.
Robert

This was a lot of fun to work on and I know I owe a debt to patron playtesters who spotted a facepalm moment and saved me. I hope more folks take the time to read and review it!

-Ben.
Liberty's Edge

I'm running my campaign out of Falcon's Hollow, in the Darkmoon Vale region of Andoran (just finished modules D0,D1, D1.5, & D4). My PCs just hit 7th (APL 9.5) and I'm wondering if I could swap this material in for Darkmoon Wood or Arthfell Forest. Does it lend itself to dropping into other settings? How much use can I make of these adventures with an APL 9.5 group?
Scarab Sages

I have wanted to pick this up since it was announced, Open Design adventures are amazing.
Scarab Sages
NicodemisFinch wrote:
I'm running my campaign out of Falcon's Hollow, in the Darkmoon Vale region of Andoran (just finished modules D0,D1, D1.5, & D4). My PCs just hit 7th (APL 9.5) and I'm wondering if I could swap this material in for Darkmoon Wood or Arthfell Forest. Does it lend itself to dropping into other settings? How much use can I make of these adventures with an APL 9.5 group?

I think it would work excellently with most any large, ancient forest. Your party might admittedly find the first adventures too easy, but the final few adventures should be pretty adjustable for you.

Dark Archive
NicodemisFinch wrote:
I'm running my campaign out of Falcon's Hollow, in the Darkmoon Vale region of Andoran (just finished modules D0,D1, D1.5, & D4). My PCs just hit 7th (APL 9.5) and I'm wondering if I could swap this material in for Darkmoon Wood or Arthfell Forest. Does it lend itself to dropping into other settings? How much use can I make of these adventures with an APL 9.5 group?

The flavor matches Darkmoon Vale really well, and the two highest level adventures - both about right for your group - are really a lot of fun.

Damsels, dragons, and immortal witches - oh my!
NicodemisFinch wrote:
I'm running my campaign out of Falcon's Hollow, in the Darkmoon Vale region of Andoran (just finished modules D0,D1, D1.5, & D4). My PCs just hit 7th (APL 9.5) and I'm wondering if I could swap this material in for Darkmoon Wood or Arthfell Forest. Does it lend itself to dropping into other settings? How much use can I make of these adventures with an APL 9.5 group?

The last two adventures would work specifically for your table. I wrote "Grandmother's Fire," set for level 8 to 9, and you could easily juice that up with some slight modifications actually discussed in the text. And it has hooks for dragging the adventurers deeper into the stories of the forest. Next is "The Lustful Dragon," and it's set for level 10.

With the recent posts about "reskinning monsters" for the Margreve over at Kobold Quarterly, you'd also be able to scale the remaining adventures with appropriate monsters to new APLs with limited effort.

I hope you check it out and review it if you do.

-Ben.

Great to hear that Margreve is getting such a positive response!

For those considering adopting the Margreve forest into your own game world, I can tell you to "go for it" with great confidence. One of our design goals was to make the Old Margreve as transplantable as possible. And one of the ways we made that happen is also one of the reasons it's such a fantastic place to explore: the forest and its mysteries, dangers, and treasures are self contained, unexplored, and untapped. The ancient forest's antipathy toward the taint of civilization has long isolated it from the kingdoms that rise and fall around it. It's a place where the precursors of "modern" creatures still tred, and Old World magic weaves itself. A place unkind to interlopers. And a dark hoarder of its own secrets. Besides a brief section that describes the forest's borders, I'd say the rest is 100% transplantable.

This project was a pleasure to work on from start to finish, so many many many bonus Hero Points to Tim and Eileen and all the other patrons that made it so special. I know I'm shamelessly biased but its perfect... except that we had to stop writing it at some point. Even now I'm rubbing my hands with evil glee at the prospect of subjecting my regular gaming group to it - they should all be out of therapy by now, it was only a playtest after all.

The Margreve is totally portable, because its as much about atmosphere as about geography (more so, I'd say). In fact there's almost certainly somewhere with the Margreve vibe near every gaming group regardless of campaign world: Its every towering forest that elicits a shiver of awe as moths dance in shafts of sunlight piercing the canopy, and the shivers of any entirely different kind when shadows lengthen beneath the boughs, when half-formed faces are glimpsed in the bowls of rotting trees, and the cruel laughter drifts on the twilight breeze.

Have fun, and keep one eye on the Big Bad Wolf!
The Exchange

I ordered the print version but it says it is a preorder. Want to start using this right away but can't afford a PDF version as well. Why no PDF version with the print version purchase??

I mean, I paid but I am still waiting?
The Exchange Kobold Press

Zuxius, I agree that PDF+print is the way to go, and Open Design offers that to all project patrons (the people who made it possible to do the project!).

On the Paizo site, I don't think Open Design has done bundles yet. I keep meaning to, but there's no easy way to set it up automatically for a publisher.

Definitely something we're working to fix! Small publishers gotta hustle!
Sovereign Court
Wolfgang Baur wrote:

Zuxius, I agree that PDF+print is the way to go, and Open Design offers that to all project patrons (the people who made it possible to do the project!).

On the Paizo site, I don't think Open Design has done bundles yet. I keep meaning to, but there's no easy way to set it up automatically for a publisher.

Definitely something we're working to fix! Small publishers gotta hustle!

Cubicle 7 beat KQ to the punch!

You read it here first!

Where's Tom Rex when you need him?
Liberty's Edge

I just downloaded it and it would be interesting to add this to the Kingmaker AP.
The Exchange Kobold Press

Another 5-star review of this one is online.

Just ordered this today. I sort of hope what I got in Kobold Quarterly is also in Margreve. The teaser in KQ put me over to purchase it.
Dark Archive
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

I will be adding a review of those hopefully by the end of the week or weekend. So far I am really liking what I am reading.
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