I bought Dragon’s Demand last week and read through it by now. And I must say that my expectations were really not met. But why is that so? You get a full description of what happens and what will happen in every chapter, at the start of each chapter. As a GM you always know what’s going on and what to tell and not to tell the Players. The new format is truly at its best here. The story itself is above standard, but not by far. The Dungeons are well written and described very detailed. And the PCs will have enough to do to get to level 7 at the end of this module.
The real problem I have with this book is the description of the town of Belhaim. You get a very nice poster map and a listing of every little house that is shown there. So you totally know that there is the Chance Smithy and that there are 6 humans working for a guy named Marcus Chance who is a NE male Expert 1 / Warrior 3 and is an unfriendly brutish guy. But what does that help me as a GM? The only NPC that gets a proper description is the town’s baroness and the main supporting evildoers. And the rest is up to the GM. The whole description of Belhaim is only 4 pages long. Only 3 of its denizens have a portrait and more than a list entry as a description. For some GMs this might be enough. But for me, I can come up with names for places and NPCs anytime. But what I expect from a module is that it gives me interesting NPCs to work with and fascinating backstories for them. And that is lacking, even with the main NPCs be they friend or foe.
The second big problem I have is that the PCs will not get to know their enemy. The Dragon is a well written character. His lieutenants also have interesting backstories, but are each reduced to one simple encounter. There is so much potential for more here. I would imagine sending my PCs on errands for the dragon so that he does not destroy Belhaim. Think about it like “Simon Sais” in Die Hard. While doing the dragons bidding the PCs get to know his secrets and his fellow lieutenants and slowly work out a plan to destroy the fiend. While you can do something like this with this adventure, there is nothing of it in this book. It is just straight forward go in and kill the dragon. And that is why I think it falls short on the account of what it could have been.
The last problem is but a small one. Don’t buy this module if you don’t own the Bestiary, Bestiary 2 and Ultimate Equipment (maybe also Bestiary 3). Every second monster is only described with “Bestiary 2 page xy” with no further info whatsoever. It’s the same with magic items. The Pathfinder reference document surely helps, but if you don't use a PC at the gaming table you have to print out all the entries and still don't have pictures of the monsters.
Closing thoughts: I will recommend this book to any GM that “only” needs a set of interesting and not too combat heavy dungeons that are well written and easy to GM. If you have all the pathfinder rulebooks you won’t run into any problems here whatsoever. While there is only little info on the different lieutenants and the dragon itself, this might be ok for some GMs. If you need a little more handholding as a GM when it comes to NPCs, this might not be the module for you. You need the PCs to get to know Belhaim and run some errands there and the book really doesn’t help you with that in any way. So if that is a problem to you or you don’t have all the rulebooks, don’t buy this one.
I rate this module with 3.5 stars because it only falls short on the basis of my expectations. It’s definitely a good module and with some GM work it can be a very exciting adventure. If done properly you could run a whole campaign flashing out the denizens of Belhaim as you go and inventing your own Belhaim while doing so.
