A couple of minor spoilers follow. You have been warned.

In spite of the criticisms which follow I feel that this dungeon would be worthwhile for most people. I read the print version of the module.

Having read several reviews on this dungeon I fully expected to love it, and I did enjoy it for the most part. I really enjoyed the social interaction aspect of the dungeon, but admit that there were times when I found it hard to believe that many parties would pause long enough for negotiation to begin. All four of the major races trapped in the dungeon are traditionally Chaotic Evil, which makes it hard to place into the typical Pathfinder setting. However, if you play with more alignment grey zone then the social interaction is top notch and there are some very interesting encounters. The module could certainly be run as a generic hack fest, but that loses almost all of the flavor behind the module. Failing to keep my suspension of disbelief cost 1/2 star.

The introduction also cost 1/2 star. In my experience Magic tech is very setting specific and you either love it or you hate it. I tend not to like it. Entry into the dungeon is via a mechanized Bulette drilling machine. This almost immediately jolted me out of a feeling of world neutrality into the perception that there were presumptions behind the world that I did not like. With some work the module could be modified to remove the magic tech, but I do not like having such a key element of the adventure interfere with the world view. In order to run the module as is, I would have to significantly modify either the setting or how the characters get into the dungeon. Other than that this dungeon could be placed in almost any Pathfinder compatible world.

There were a few minor editing errors, but nothing major. Final assessment 4 stars.

Really impressed with this one. As some have gone far in depth on the review, I will just say that i am pleased with the originality of this one and i highly recommend this adventure to any GM's.

I really like the idea of making adventures that have maps fully fleshed out for the whole adventure, and this one not only gives us that, but a remarkable adventure on its own as well.

Now, as much as i liked this one, i do have some small problems with it that caused me to drop from 5 to 4 stars ...

To start with some of the room descriptions did not seem to match up with what i was seeing on the maps. Not sure if this was typos in the text or not, but was a bit confusing.

My other problem was that among all the player handouts, and there were a lot, there was no map to hand out to players. Would make sense within the story line that many people of Rogthandor would have at some point made maps of the known areas. Would be nice to have such a map to hand out to players, with all secret areas not marked on said map.

I was part of the kickstart for this project and have to admit i wish i could of done more :)
I started using the Maps and could not wait for the adventure to get to me.
I was and is a job well done

Citadel of Pain by Gaming Paper

This product is 119 pages long. It starts with a cover, credits, and ToC. (6 pages)

Citadel of Pain (5 pages)
This has the intro, adventure summery, and several special rules. Such as something demipotions and there effects, which serves as a type of currency in the citadel Plus interaction points rules and a love hate chart. Which shows how those in the citadel feel about each other.

Starting the Adventure (5 pages)
The PC's get hired by a NPC to go on a expedition to drill down to the citadel with a machine. In the first part the PC's get to do some role playing and it is assumed they will choose to go along. While they do make it down to the Citadel, things go wrong and now they are stuck there as well.

Act 1 (13 pages)
Trapped now with in the citadel, this sections focuses mostly on letting the PC's explore and interact with the residents within.

Act 2 (35 pages)
In this section it is somewhat like act 1 but the PC's get more involved in the goings on with in the citadel and discover information about a device that can free them and everyone else from the citadel. Eventually the discover where the device is suppose to be.

Act 3 (11 pages)
In this section the PC's set off to acquire the device that will free them from the citadel but not everyone wants them to find it. At the end is advice and information on how to conclude the adventure and tie up any lose ends of the adventure.

Appendix 1: Assassins (1 page)
There is 3 full stat blocks for 3 assassins.

Appendix 2: Magic Items by Gold Price (2 pages)
It has a list of all the magic items by gold value lowest to highest. They range from 1,800 to 211,000 and one priceless.

Player Handouts (12 pages)
There is 11 pages of player handouts and one page of special thanks.

Maps (36 pages)
Then end of the book is a bunch of maps for mini's.

It ends with a Back cover. (1 pages)

Closing thoughts. The art work is black and white and ranges from fair to pretty good. Editing and format are pretty good, I didn't notice any editing errors. It is heavily bookmarked as well. This is a very sandboxy adventure and while yes it is a Megadungeon it really doesn't feel like a megadungeon, because of the sandbox style and the fact the PC's don't have to fight everything they run into. In fact there is a lot of RP chances with in the adventure. It feels more like a underground city that is sectioned off by gangs, the gangs just happen to be monsters. I tried to not be very spoiler with my review a lot of the adventure is about stories and plots going on. Beyond the obvious one of wanting to escape by the PC's, there is tons of little side stories and plots going on by the monsters that the PC's will likely end up at the very least involved with some of them. So what's my rating? For being inventive and well written, not to mention getting a megadungeon to by story heavy and RP heavy I am going to give it a 5 star review.

Trust me, I'm a Succubus.

This pdf is 119 pages long, 1 page front cover, 2 pages of editorial, 1 page of ToC, 1 blank page prior to the content, 1 page of Kickstarter thanks to patrons, leaving 113 pages of content, quite a bunch! It should be noted that the new version of the pdf is separated into 2 files - adventure and map-sheets and thus uses up less space than before. (The high-res map-sheets should be printed out anyway!)

The adventure kicks in with a neat splotch of blood and a famous line by Oscar Wilde prior to getting into the action. It should be noted that this adventure uses the mega-dungeon map from Gaming Paper and includes 25 sheets for the map of the dungeon. The sheets are b/w and large enough to use with miniatures and come with a grid. Early in the adventure we also get an extremely useful one-page overview map and this is just as far as I can go without delving into massive

SPOILERS.
...Potential players, please jump to the conclusion. Seriously, you don't want to spoil this one.
...
Still here?

....
All right! The adventure takes the PCs into a citadel sealed by liquid, magic-resistant stone that once belonged to mad and sadistic Vilseph Dumond, who sought to transcend mortality by building the ultimate torture device. Prior to the Citadel being sealed, an almost vanquished army of monster sought refuge and the citadel has lain dormant for long. The PCs are hired via 3 sample hooks or one of your own making to enter Rogthondar, the dread citadel, alongside Twith Ballancastor, alchemist extraordinaire, whose drilling tank provides for the PCs entrance to the otherwise sealed dungeon. Yep. They enter a citadel covered by liquid rock via a drilling-tank. How cool is that? Of course, this act of drilling is not too simple and panicking guards as well as the dread dumondite (the liquid stone) do their very best to make the entrance to the citadel feel well-deserved. Additionally, the atmosphere of claustrophobia is almost tangible right from now on to the very end of the adventure.
Even cooler, though, is the micro-society that has sprung up within the bounds of the citadel, sentient altar-prototypes of the legendary Eureka Rib lead different fractions in an ongoing struggle and seek to further transform and propagate their very brand of superior creatures. The PCs enter the playing field of the dungeon's politics via the fraction of the deviceless (they don't have an intelligent torture device), who are lead by humans and work as a kind of police-force in their quarter, which also contains the bazaar, a rather surreal hodgepodge of ogres, minotaurs, bugbears and troglodytes. Food, of course is scarce, valuable and especially any food not being fungal or a derivative of an alchemically-modified edible vermin called slitch is guaranteed to bring A LOT of attention with it.
Another peculiarity of the area controlled by the deviceless is a huge cistern from which alchemical slough is extracted to create so-called demi-potions - unstable alchemical potions that come as three sets of quality and with 20 (sometimes utterly hilarious! Examples include blown-up lips that blind you, but help you swim due to increased buoyancy, becoming a meaty ball with a face and growing hair... a lot of it...) side-effects per level of quality for the imbiber that are thankfully temporary enough to make the game-relevant, but also amusing to the afflicted player. A simple mini-tracksheet containing the factions also helps the DM manage the reactions of the different factions, but more on that later, after all, the PCs have just crashed into the citadels neutral ground, the kitchen, and may be stunned to see a kind-hearted troglodyte futile attempts at saving one of the guards that accompanied them and got hit by the dripping, deadly liquid rock. That's where the fun starts: Lou Agresta & Rone Barton's former collaborations have been more than rife with several interesting and ingenious tidbits of fluff and this one is no difference: The premise of a wholly isolated society with its own balances and the arrival of newcomers is played up to the fullest: From cults springing up to celebrate the advent of the liberators to the simple fact that in such a limited population everyone knows certain rules. Everyone but the PCs, that is. Add to that a nice smattering of a kind of urbane "slang" employed by the denizens (with easily mistakable measurement units like "a human hand" - no, the ogre does not want a severed human hand, you sicko!) and you're in for a background that may in and of itself offer hours of roleplaying fun and potential for both hilarious and dangerous situations.

Indeed, after maneuvering the strange and curious bazaar and at least partially getting to know the place, the PCs will have the opportunity to defeat some foes and thus gain the option to talk to an ambassador of the alchemically-mutated deviceless (who don't have an altar, i.e. a sentient torture device), who seeks to use the novelty of the PCs for a "diplomatic" mission to the respective monster clans. As a benefit for the PCs, the deviceless mention the fabled eureka rib, perhaps the very only possibility for the PCs to once again escape the citadel - of course, coincidentally one of the sentient altars worshiped as gods by the humanoids might very well be said rib... Unbeknownst to both ambassador and PCs, the grandmaster of the linen-wrapped mutated alchemists has more on his agenda, though and the ambassador seems to be an instigator of the worst kind... This concludes act 1.

Act 2 serves as a rather free-form flow of the different monster territories, first of which is the Fantôme-bugbears: Mutated bugbears half-caught in the realms of dream, whose altar is possessed by a ghost who in turn acts as a seal that holds back the tide of nightmarish creatures from the depths of dreaming shallows. Interfaction events, already explained prior to this, also are presented: They are events that can be introduced to change the balance between the factions like assassination attempts to keep the political landscape of the citadel mutable. Mutability is a good cue: The fantôme bugbears _all_ come with individual, imaginative, cool mutations and whether the PCs battle or negotiate with the dread Oneiromant, the ghost trapped on the dread bed-altar has some rather interesting/disturbing dreams and if one PC accepts the boon and curse of the bed, they'll have to contend with a dread invader from dream.

The second faction presented are the minotaurs, who worship the dread white witch, a rotating marble pole with an attached harness that end its merry-go-round by suddenly stopping and slamming the victims against its base - the resulted witch-kissed minotaurs regenerate and henceforth are infected with strange...things that make them almost unkillable. To make matters worse, interfaction events and an internal power struggle between king and high-priest over the amount of minotaurs to be exalted by the witch has the faction torn and not necessarily makes the PC's quest to see the devious and aggressive torture device any easier. Even more interesting: The device actually has an inkling how to escape and in an act of self-preservation might even try to creatively talk to PC out to destroy it.

The Troglodyte camp is similarly unique: Transform by their altar, the foul-smelling brutes have found a monastic (and a pronounced contempt for their untransmogrified brethren) calling via their iron-skinned new forms. The paranoid leader wants one of the regular troglodytes forcefully recruited and once again, faction politics might make it harder than at first glance. The metal-syringe-studded iron ball they use for transformation might yet offer another clue, though...if the PCs brave the merciless troglodyte's requests or infiltrate the compound.

Part II of my review in the product discussion, post 47. See you there!