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Pathfinder Chronicles: Guide to Darkmoon Vale (OGL)
Paizo Publishing, LLC
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Print Edition:
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$17.99
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PDF:
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$12.99
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Explore the forbidden reaches of the treacherous Darkmoon Vale, a fey-haunted wilderness on the outskirts of civilization. In this detail-packed full-color 64-page regional sourcebook for the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting, you’ll learn about the diabolical forces of the dreaded Kobold King, explore the ancient dwarven dungeons of Droskar’s Crag, and discover a cabal of evil druids. The lumber-town of Falcon’s Hollow holds deadly secrets of its own, and vicious orcs and hobgoblins from the neighboring mountains look upon its modest riches with deadly envy. A perfect locale for adventure, Darkmoon Vale and its secrets are laid bare for players and game masters alike!
ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-100-8
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Product Reviews
Average product rating:
 
(3.8)
based on
10
reviews
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review.
This books us a subperb example of what support material for a DM in a location should be. I rate this item 5 out of 5.
Unlike other reviews, the maps are more than adequate, can give an overall idea of location. I can say this as I would not rely on them to use in game. Though I would suggest that there is plenty of opportunity to create an map folio to support this Darkmoon Vale as there are plenty of Pathfinder (Gamemastery) modules for adventures.
The book is also pack with dones of history and backgrounds and options for npcs and pcs alike. This books is for DMs and I would not advise a PC to purchase.
No suprises, this continues the tradition of a great product in the Pathfinder world by the Paizo staff. My only negative was for the few typos I found.
I really like this Pathfinder Chronicles resource. It is a small enough area to get a party of 1st level characters going without having to go through the intricacies of Golarion, the campaign setting itself, while providing enough details for a whole lot of adventuring if the DM chooses so.
I agree that the maps have some issues, like the lack of a scale, but was less bothered by the discrepancies between the general map and the details in the book itself, since I tend to treat those maps as "medieval" in nature, that is, imperfect, drawn by people observing the landscape rather than using satellite imaging, which leads to various interpretations and representations of the landmass.
Along with Crown of the Kobold King and its follow-up, Carnival of Tears, the Last Baron's module series, it really makes for an interesting, contained (and thus old school in nature) setting.
Sorry, but this was a let down. Falcon's Hollow is described as being more spread out, but what does that look like? No scale on the maps was bad, and needs to be addressed at some point, because not everyone has D)0 Hollow's Last Hope (which has by far the best map of Darkmoon Wood). Also, the major NPCs table has some names repeated with different stat info. Not good. When adding new character-use creatures, give us the stats, and proper gp value. Editing. Editing. Editing. Other than that, nasty cool. Secrets is a great section. I love the Falcon's Hollow setting, but was a bit dissappointed(?) with this one. Can we have a Map Pack of Darkmoon Vale someday? Thanks Paizo. Don't stop, just keep getting better. Too many mistakes, average rating.
I heartily recommend the Guide to anyone interested in adventures like Crown of the Kobold King or Carnival of Tears. It does a magnificent job of covering Darkmoon Vale, providing background info on everything from geography to history to individual characters. Also, it's got werewolves, and who doesn't like werewolves? ;)
It does have a very few flaws, however; one critter isn't fully detailed (the dream wolf) and one or two characters seem to have mysteriously changing stats from their entries in the book to the master list in the back, but these are really minor flaws.
I love that this is written as a guide book and not as a game book. The groups and factions are interesting without being vague or too specific. All around an enjoyable read.
Darkmoon Vale has superb flavor, but suffers from some serious cartography issues. The large map provided appears to be more of a players map, with coarse features and with several sites marked, but unnamed. Sadly it is difficult for the DM to discern what some of those sites actually are. The more detailed DM maps are fragmented bits strewn over several pages making it very difficult to envision the whole of the Vale. Additionally even these maps lack nearly a dozen or so locations described in the text. It is a bit frustrating when the intriguing location you just read about doesn't exist on the maps. The product has an assortment of typos and such, but these aren't fatal flaws-the discontinuity between the text and the maps is however. This is probably the weakest Paizo product I've ever purchased-it simply doesn't approach their typical, high standards. It's not unsalvageable, but I certainly expected much better and to give this product more than 2 stars would be a grave disservice to the many fine Paizo products that truly merit 4 or 5 stars.
The title really says it all. This book is yet another masterpiece from Paizo. Having read Guide to Korvosa, my expectations for this book were high. I was not disappointed. Like the city sourcebook, this book is packed with goodies for players and DMs alike. I've always liked using frontier settings in my games, and now I'm even more eager to run games set in Darkmoon Vale. There were some nasty typos but I can live with that.
Another great supplement for the Pathfinder Chronicles line, and one that makes it easy to run the many modules set in Darkmoon Vale.
Unfortunately, I have to give this a less than stellar review. The main problems for me are the map that comes with the book not following some of the maps in the book (shapes of the landscape change dramatically?).
Also, in a couple of places, place names are spelled differently.
The writing quality is definitely there, but the cartography really needs a review.
Product Discussion
41
posts.
See all discussion for this product.
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Ummmm no Map showing all the regions? you have individual maps of each region talked about, but it makes it difficult to view the region as a whole when they are not all brought into one map.
Any product that Have a Map of the full region of Darkmoon Vale with the detail shown in this guide or close to it?
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I'm considering using good ol' photoshop to throw together just such a thing . . . but I'd not say "no" to a free download :).
Good read so far, though I'm not quite through it . . .
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I love the picture of Ezren getting eaten by the werewolf and all but I would have preferred a map of the region too...
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Hi,
will a PDF version be available?
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Dragnmoon wrote:
Ummmm no Map showing all the regions? you have individual maps of each region talked about, but it makes it difficult to view the region as a whole when they are not all brought into one map.
Any product that Have a Map of the full region of Darkmoon Vale with the detail shown in this guide or close to it?
The print edition has a poster map of the whole region. Vic said over on another thread that he was going to add it to the PDF, should be there by now.
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Dragnmoon
(Pathfinder Chronicles Charter Superscriber; GameMastery Superscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Pathfinder Fiction Subscriber),
DitheringFool
(Pathfinder Chronicles Charter Superscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, GameMastery Cards Subscriber),
David Fryer,
