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Pathfinder #3—Rise of the Runelords Chapter 3: "The Hook Mountain Massacre" (OGL) PDF
Paizo Publishing, LLC
Chapter 3: "The Hook Mountain Massacre"
by Nicolas Logue
The third installment of the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path begins with a desperate call for aid from Hook Mountain. A tribe of ogres has slaughtered the garrison of a small keep, including the famous retired war hero stationed there. The few surviving rangers need the heroes to help them retake the key fortification back. Once the ogres are driven off, the PCs are awarded stewardship of the keep. Yet as the heroes begin the task of repairing and expanding their new stronghold, a sinister force grows in the surrounding wilderness.
What ties did the slaughtered commander have to these vengeful ghosts, and what terrible secrets do the ogres of Hook Mountain hide? Are the rumors of an army of giants massing for war in fact true?
This volume of Pathfinder also features rules for maintaining and running a castle, a gazetteer of the wilderness region featured in the Adventure Path, and introduces several new monsters perfect for plaguing PCs who tread too far into these haunted mountains.
For characters of 7th to 9th level.
Pathfinder is Paizo Publishing's 96-page, perfect-bound, full-color softcover Adventure Path book printed on high-quality paper that releases in a monthly volume. Each volume is brought to you by the same staff which brought you Dragon and Dungeon magazines for over five years. It contains an in-depth Adventure Path scenario, stats for about a half-dozen new monsters, and several support articles meant to give Game Masters additional material to expand their campaign. Because Pathfinder uses the Open Game License, it is 100% compatible with the world's most popular fantasy roleplaying game.
ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-038-4
NOTE: Copies sold as "Non-Mint" have been dinged or bent, or have some markings on the cover, so we're making them available at a discounted price. While they have some cosmetic damage, they'll make great second reading copies. There will be no refunds on non-mint copies.
Are there errors or omissions in this product information? Got corrections? Let us know at
webmaster@paizo.com.
Product Reviews
Average product rating:
 
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For the full review, please see my blog at:
link.
Key features
There are a number of features that this module provides that I am going to list out below:
1. Backwoods style horror adventure
2. The fully mapped out Fort Rannick, and the possibility that the characters can end up in possession of it
3. Fully mapped out Skull crossing dam.
4. An article detailing how to run a keep
5. The gazetteer of Varisia.
6. The Pathfinder Journal, which continues the chronicles of Eando Kline
Final notes
As I mentioned in the opening, not everyone is going to like it, as it has a rather dark and nasty theme to it. There is a lot to like about this module. Nick does a great job in covering the Turtleback Ferry town and the surrounding area. He actually covers a lot of territory, and the adventure moves the characters through a number of the high interest locations. The fort is covered in good details, and the characters will enjoy a chance to run it. This can easily be expanded upon, and offers plenty of role playing opportunities. The dam location is one of my favorites, as there is quite a bit to this location. Wayne’s cover art adds considerable flavor to this encounter. The inner workings of the dam are particularily interesting, but I will not include any spoilers on this. The module has a very smooth transition to the next module, and I think James and Nick did a nice job on this.
Overall, I give this module a thumbs up, as I did enjoy reading through it. I fully understand that this will not appeal to everyone based on the content. If one enjoys backwoods horror and Home, then this one is for you. If you have a more sensitive outlook on things, I would apply caution before opening.
Rating: 3.5 Dragons (on a scale of 5)
Let's kick off with a few facts:
A wilderness/dungeon crawl module with a very strong, 18+ themes. The adventure features some major gory and gross elements. This might put some younger and sensitive players off. Be advised.
Once we are through that, it's a great module featuring several unique locales and memorable characters. Nicolas Logue is a very talented writer and I enjoyed the plot as well as many small surprises within the module.
However, there are some points where the adventure lacks polish - a major settlement is left without a map and just some rough overview, there are 4 NPCs that likely join the party for some time and require major book-keeping and care, a few statblocks more would be really useful... The Paizo forums are full of useful advice and props helpful in running this one, so make sure to check it out !
However, it's still a great module, just needs quite a bit of prep work, far more than PF 1 and PF 2. All in all, I enjoyed running it and my players liked it a lot as well.
When I first read this scenario I was disappointed. It seemed to be accidently attached to the Rise of the Runelords adventure path. After the first two which had everything hooked together real well this seemed a massacre. Well I dove in and first change was that the order in the book was pretty much screwy, combined some events and took others and muscled them into others as foreshadowing and task list. After a lot of work I ran it and the changes were even better than I hoped which made me wonder if it was not as bad as I once thought it was. The only thing it needed was something to tie it together with the PCs hometown of Sandpoint and I did that with an item named by one of the players "Skull Crossing" so it worked out pretty well. Just wish it would have came out of the shipping container that way is all.
For me this was the better adventure of the AP RotRL. This because I love siege-like adventures especially if they can keep the keep.
The new presntation for the ogres brings a whole new fresh point of view fo the race.
This adventure has a lot of wandering around places and take action into very interesting places. The only thing I'm not so crazy about its the fact that this one its not so heavely connected to the RotRL campaign. Of course there are a lot of factors that link to it, but non too consequential. Anyway, a great adventure on its own!
I loved this one! Ogres are probably the coolest monster out there, and Paizo depicted them perfectley
This mod has too much over the top content, some of it going past the bounds of what you'd reasonably expect to find in a Paizo product. It will need some editing to be suitable for most groups. In addition, it flows very poorly. Its difficult to keep the Runelords theme in mind, and will be difficult to keep the players remembering that with this mish-mash of what feels like random encounters.
There are some creative things done in this mod with ogres, but the good things are far overshadowed by the bad. Like the some of the other Pathfinder mods, it also suffers from a lack of important detail, so expect to put some work into this before you run it.
In this issue, we're introduced to the Pathfinder version of ogres. I may never sleep soundly again. Nicholas Logue has turned ogres into something truly loathsome and horrific. It work exceedingly well, but it's not for the faint of heart. Again, fantastic supplemental material, too.
Strangely enough, the inbred, wonderfully disgusting "logueness" of this issue didn't repulse me as much as I thought it would. That makes me curious as to what type of content was excluded from the final text!
The best part of the adventure, I think, is the relative free-form management of a fort the PCs can take care of after liberating it from its monstrous occupiers. This goes along with some advice on how to run the upkeep of a fort in the game.
The whole plot is extremely detailed and vibrant. It's alive.
The roster of creatures included with this issue is extremely useful. Great value there as well.
I give it a "4", probably because I was somehow expecting more in the ways of horror and disturbing creepiness, as well as a more original plot (this adventure is all in all very classic for D&D), after the Skinsaw Murders.
Nick Logue set out to create a disturbing romp through a backwoods inbred group like the Hills Have Eyes and he was very successful. I suggest as a DM doing a bit of work on connecting it with the rest of the AP and especially what the party had been doing previously but other than that it was tough and disturbing for my group and that was the intent. Wonderful.
Inbred Ogrekin, disgusting. I really liked Skull Crossing for some reason. Probably because I never see dams used and the picture was great.
Product Discussion
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Downloading! Yay!
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Phazzar wrote:
Downloading! Yay!
I'm so jealous! Holy smokes!!!
Oh, and, smurf. Just to see me change.
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DEAR GODS!
I can download it too!!!
SMURF!
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Woot! Me too!
Edit: Hey! Everyone else, knock it off. My download is going slowly because you're all downloading at the same time as me. I'll post when I'm done and then you can download.
Edit2: Damn you Paizo! First you do the rpg superstar and now you give me the next issue of pathfinder to read. I need to start writing for nanowrimo tonight!!! Argh!!! Quit producing products that I need to read as soon as I receive them!!!
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Christ! I wake up, turn on the computer and this!
This is gonna be a great cup of coffee.
w00t!
Edit: I was gonna mention that they have narcotics in the ink, then the coffee hit my lips and I realized that this is digital and you are just compulsive, Sebastian.
Edit 2: Got it just as the belly started to warm, cya later suckers, I'm readin'.
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Sebastian
(Bella Sara Charter Superscriber),
