This is perhaps the best gaming I have experienced in Pathfinder Society. Literally, this is the best module/scenario ever. 5 stars.

And yet, the other reviews here paint it as a TERRIBLE product. And to some degree, they are right. I'm going to explain how this is both the best & worst game ever. I'm going to spoiler most of this, but I'm going to leave the first part visible to players & GMs. That is: this is a TPK in the high tier.

If you play high tier, you are supposed to die, full stop. Just do NOT play high tier. Change your characters, bring in levels 7/8/9, stay low tier. If you do this, the game immediately switches from "unfair garbage" to "hey that was fun." And now we'll get into spoilers where I explain why, and I'll respond to some reviewers previous comments.

All in all, I think there are a lot of cool outcomes for this adventure. Don't let a lackluster GM rob you of all the good options you can try here. It really should be a great time, and a wild rescue.

By "scary" I do not mean "haunted" or "ghosts." I mean, this module/scenario has a reputation for being difficult. See the previous reviews. Some will tell you it's unfair or ends in a TPK. To be fair, when I was a player in this module, there was indeed death (but no TPK), so it IS a rough one. However, I just ran the scenario and nobody died. I did do a lot of damage, though, and I wasn't trying hard. Let's talk about some of the details:

Overall, I'd say that the module, at least in low tier, feels like it's on hard mode. GMs, my advice is to remind the players that they are in Absalom, and NOTHING in the module suggests that they must remain in the museum, on a timer. They absolutely can retreat, purchase gear, and try again. Oh! Also, the Venture Agent running my local store says she's run this multiple times and always ended it in 4 hours. There is no way I could do that. I actually had the map on a giant flat-screen TV that we used as a table, and we had fog-of-war over the map, so as they opened doors I'd reveal only that particular room. Going room-by-room on 2 separate maps (with 2 extra not-made maps of the basement and a living area) just took waaaayy too much time. I needed 6 hours. I could have crammed down to 5 hours. For me, 4 hours would require too much hand-holding or railroading. I can't do it fast enough, with everything in the product (2 or 3 social interactions & 5 or 6 fights, 3 of which are HARD -- I can't run all that in 4 hours unless I'm leading the players by their noses). So I'm going to dock 1 star for the length & difficulty. However, I still like it anyway; I really enjoyed this exploration of the museum. If we could do halves, I'd give this 3.5 stars.

I played this back when it came out, and then just last night I was the GM for a group of 5 players.

This is an investigation module. You're going to get a list of "suspects" or perhaps better worded is... "persons of interest." You'll head out to interview many NPCs, do a LOT of talking, and a LOT of skill checks. There is some rough & tumble action here for brute-force dummies, but it's sparse. You really want to bring a PC that can at least attempt to Aid Another on a few skills. Also, this is one of those "pay attention and write down leads and hints" kind of scenarios. If you don't like that stuff, take a pass.

One of the players, at the end of the game night, said it was good that I was running it, as some other GMs might have shortchanged the role play, perhaps just asking for a handful of skill checks and then moving on. In my case, I spoke as if I were the NPCs, and I challenged the players to hit upon the key points that each NPC cared about. I didn't call for skill rolls until they earned it with some good back & forth banter, and I didn't give them the info they wanted unless they backed up their words with great rolls. And OH MY did they ever get good rolls.

All the investigation probably took 2 hours of real-world time. Then they were off to put their information to use. Interestingly, this could have been 3 hours of bloodshed, but these role players found ways to avoid almost all of that. And the scenario works fine with that!

I really enjoyed playing these NPCs. Particularly Fiffernetter. I won't give away who she is, but she's very enjoyable to play as an unlikely cross between Dolores Umbridge (Harry Potter series) and Dorothy (The Wizard of Oz). She was great fun. Also, I really enjoyed a "trick" the scenario uses for the NPC interactions (spoiler):

Having heaped some praise on this, let's talk about the 2 major issues I have with it. The first is the time limitation. We're trying to run an open-ended investigation game in a 4-hour time slot, but there is enough material here for 6 hours of game play. The last set-piece encounter/thing you do can be approached a dozen different ways, with a brute-force dumbed-down charge, or a nuanced stealthy recon mission followed by deception and more lengthy social interactions. Anything in between those extremes is also likely and the product even covers a lot of possibilities. This alone could take an hour or more, yet we were already at the 4+ hour mark when we got to the endgame. That's ridiculous.

I did see some reviews saying the game runs short. I don't know how that is possible unless you're doing exactly what my player dreads -- you short-change all the investigation work down to just "Roll these 5 skill checks and I'll give you an info dump." If you're doing that, I guess maybe you have to in a tight time slot, but it really seems like it bypasses pages & pages of the author's work.

The 2nd issue? It's discussed in the GM discussion forum for this product. That is, if you follow the rules of the module, you are mandated to have the players fail their mission. I'll briefly summarize it here, but the GM forum is a better place for this:

Despite the 2 flaws, I had an incredible time with this product. I had a lot of fun, lots of memorable characters, and a great story as well. It's just a great time. I'd give it 5 stars, then dock 1 star for the flaws, and we're left with a 4-star product. Thank you Paizo for a great game.

When our group sat down to play this, I had 2 characters of the appropriate level: a paladin or a wizard. I wanted to play the paladin, but the group urged me to play my wizard, since the wizard has maxed-out knowledge skills. I conceded. By the end of the module, it was clear that it was a great decision. This game does have fights, and in fact one fight would have killed my wizard if it were not for a healer doing a life-lock thing (I'm not sure what it's called, but he took half my hit point damage through some magical connection he set up). However, the fights were surmountable. The real issue was the skills. We realized by the end that without the wizard, it would have been VERY difficult to pass. If everyone at the table is low in skills, you're gonna have a bad time.

Despite this issue, I had a good time. There are some very weird things going on. You'll play through something like a dreamscape, but not really (it doesn't use the rules for dreamscapes because it's not actually that thing, but it's just an odd environment). I liked it being weird.

Because you can talk your way out of a fight or two, this product is very swingy in terms of time played. You could end it in 3 hours if you absolutely nailed the skills & talking/peacemaking. If everything goes wrong and your characters really struggle, it could take 6 hours.

My suspicion is that this is a 3-star product, but that I felt like it was a 4-star product because my GM was running it in a very enjoyable way (she play-acted the monsters, had ridiculous character-to-monster conversations, and so on). However, I can see that the other reviews also place it at 4 stars, so maybe it wasn't all my GM. Maybe the product itself rises above the average.

I have not read this, and have not run this. I was merely a player. It was a very odd game. One of us used a grippli boon and could only be healed by negative energy. I used a kobold boon to play a pre-gen kobold character who happened to only be able to channel negative energy. We had a pre-gen arcanist, and a pre-gen warpriest. Levels 3, 4, 4, and 4.

Despite the pre-gens, all of us have been playing for years.

The beginning was a big struggle for our team. It was difficult to get initial information and interview NPCs because, well, we were a party of frogs and lizard-men and such. In addition, we weren't super-optimized. Spoiler about that:

So after struggling for probably over an hour at the table, just trying to move our PCs through investigations and conversations, we finally started to piece some things together. It turns out, this product is one of those "open-ended investigation" scenarios. However, we seem to have done many things out of order. We kept getting nowhere with certain NPCs, then we'd talk to another NPC later on who would suggest we go back to the 1st NPC. Eventually we got it, but it was NOT smooth sailing. Fair warning to those who come at this without a PC optimized for sleuthing. Also, even though it's open-ended, understand that the product seems to have a preferred order, and we couldn't guess it.

We only had 2 fights for the entire game. And one of those fights maybe shouldn't happen. Spoiler about that:

Despite any issues, I had a fun time. I love investigation scenarios. I may buy the product just to read it & think about how I'd run things. It seems creative and possibly NPC-heavy (or role-play heavy). Also, note that this one may run long.

EDIT: I've now read the other reviews before mine, and it seems my gut feeling was on the right path: the product DOES have "only one right way to do things" as an issue. In the very first review, it notes that PCs are admonished to follow the law, but then gives no legal way to accomplish some things. In the 3rd review, it notes that you should speak to one particular NPC first but since it's open-ended the PCs would never know to do that. I'm going to set my review to 4 stars instead of 5, because this seems to be a theme in the product that should have been dealt with. It made my play-through awkward/troublesome, and apparently bothered others too, but it's still a good product.

OK, this isn't Star Wars. Maybe "princess" and "empire" is a bit much. I probably titled this incorrectly.

This is not a spoiler, as it's the introductory text, but the basic gist here is: the PCs are tasked with digging up dirt on the Aspis Consortium, and sharing that information with rebels in the hopes that it will disrupt trade. Somewhere in there might be a daring rescue.

For my group, we bungled our initial attempts to (peacefully) extract information. It was doubly difficult because there was a lawful good healer in the group AND a paladin. We couldn't be stealthy, sneaky, or deceptive.

Having said that, we pushed through and in the end we got enough data to enter into negotiations and/or "persuasive talks" with a couple of important NPCs, and managed to win them to our cause. As you might expect from a Pathfinder Society product, these NPCs quested us with "jobs" to do to help them before they would fully ally with us.

I have yet to read the PDF, but my impression from playing is that this is at least a little bit of a sandbox. Our GM spent a good portion of the night asking, "So, what do you want to do next?" I didn't feel like I was on a railroad -- we had a handful of leads & things to do right at the start and we didn't seem to experience much limitation as to order of events. This open-endedness may have caused the game to run a little long.

The combat encounters for this product are quite enjoyable. At least for me, there were conditions and status effects (high tier) that caused:

For GMs:

So, in another Pathfinder Society product (9-05, Call of the Copper Gate) a reviewer wrote this under his objections:

Essentially, a possibly hated figure is jauntily, happily trotting along with the group, making bets and joking. For my character, I viewed this NPC as a total thief & betrayer. I never felt that the authors of those previous products rehabilitated her character very well. I spent most of the game trying to get her removed from the adventure, and failing (it's railroaded in, she has to follow along). If you loved her, this will be a delight for you. If you were neutral about her, this will be a delight for you. If you think she deserves a hearty punch in the face, well, prepare to fail your mission.

OK, enough of that aspect. Let's tear that band-aid off and be done with it. Ouch.

Once over that hurdle, what's the basic summary here? What does this product bring to the table?

Well, the summary is that you are summoned to a region because, as the title implies, things are getting too verdant there. People are worried that something has gone awry magically. So you head out to investigate, with the betrayer in tow. During your investigations you'll have a couple of encounters that the betrayer won't help you overcome at all, you'll be asked to aid someone with a side-quest that isn't relevant to your quest at all, but you'll meta-game and know that you have to do the side-quest to achieve your main quest goal, and so you will, and then you'll win. Get those prestige points, baby!

OK, now without sarcasm and with more detail:

So, let me close with some positive comments. I think the fights have the potential to be interesting. I think being able to negotiate out of a couple of the fights is also interesting, although the DC to do this wasn't something my group could achieve. (I'm surprised there can be any check at all, however. By the rules, Diplomacy takes a full minute (10 rounds) of talking before you can make your roll to win someone over. Typically, 10 rounds is long enough for a combat encounter to run its course. At that point, the Diplomacy check is redundant; everything is already resolved. So allowing fights to be swayed by 1 or 2 rounds of talking is impressive.)

Lastly, there is a mechanism in this product that can separate the party members and force them to have to fend for themselves for a short period of time. I found that to be exciting. I would like to run that as a GM, and see how various groups handle it. Overall, this is a great product if you have no hangups and can just go with the fun. However, I was badly hung up on the villain that we had to obey in this product, and badly hung up on the "silly side quest that is actually your main quest" subplot. For me, issues such as these pull the rating down to a 3 star product. I cannot wait to see how others rate this.

Oh, one last thing. It might need spoilering, but it is one of those things that could make some people really upset, so it needs a warning up front so players can opt out. In another scenario from season 9, there was a big push about a lesbian married couple that figured prominently into the game. Some people hated that, some loved it. Well, here there is a gender identity "thing": a character is going to be called a him or her by the players, and then the NPC is supposed to say, "Sorry, I'm non-binary." For us, we had to figure out what that even meant. Once we "got it," it sure felt like someone was pushing an agenda. I'm not going to rate the product up or down for this, but YMMV.

Aw hell, here's an edit:

EDIT #2: I've lowered my rating to 2 stars. This product has left such a bad taste in my mouth, and Jamila/Concordance in particular is so bad (in my opinion) that I just cannot get over how much I dislike this product even 3 months later. I'm sorry about that. I can see that other reviewers clearly loved it. I just... I can't go there with you all. Sorry.

So I had a great time playing this module/scenario last night. Yet I'm only giving it 2 stars. Let me explain why.

First, you need to know this is an adventure in the Tien section of the map, an area comparable to Asian countries in the real world, with foreign languages (at least to Absalom-dwelling Pathfinders) and bird people (tengus).

The social interactions at the start of the game were enjoyable. A few people got to shine, including myself, as my Tian-Min druid was our designated translator. We had a bard who specialized in tea ceremonies, which made him particularly useful for social activities. We enjoyed meeting some of the local tengus, and learning of their upcoming "chosen one" religious ceremony. So far, so good. Except... I couldn't help thinking of another scenario:

Our final "boss fight" was hilariously underwhelming, and that's not a dig at the product. The bad guys taunted us, our barbarian got to act first, and he charged & landed a crit with a greataxe (x3), doing about 55 points of damage in a single hit. The 1st enemy was down. The next enemy took a turn, provoked AOO, the barbarian got another crit, and insta-killed the 2nd bad boss dude. Literally the entire final encounter took a few moments as crits were resolved, people cheered and laughed in disbelief, and that was it. It was very fun and funny. And that had little to do with the module. It was all due to the gang at the table.

And I feel that "it was all due to the gang at the table" was the theme of the night. Did the scenario provide some good NPCs to talk to? Well, it provided NPCs -- I won't care if I meet any of them again, but the players made it fun. Did the scenario provide a good story? Well, it did provide something, but we were all joking about the plot twists within minutes of starting the game, and players had called the boss fight 4 hours before it happened. Part of the amusement was watching players try to get to the bad guy before we were allowed. We all tried to jump the railroading. It was a great time, due to fun people.

So the product pales, even despite my attempt to make this scenario personally more relevant. How? I took my druid, which had never been played before, and changed his backstory to be Tian-Min. I gave him the relevant languages. I had the GM agree that I was picked up for this mission as a translator, a local working in the area. My character didn't initially know what Pathfinder Society was, but essentially got "roped into it" and then stayed in it. Yet all this effort to tie myself into this module didn't really help -- I mean, it worked at the table, of course, but it didn't make the game any more interesting. Essentially, the setting feels like it could have worked anywhere. The story doesn't need tengu society to work, nor does it have much regional flavor. Perhaps that's unfair -- there is read-aloud text that is evocative of the region. What I mean to suggest is that some read-aloud text and tea parties is pretty much all there is. You could strip that out and re-skin it as a Mwangi plot/story with little effort.

In the end, I feel like the product is very "okay-ish." It works. But you have seen this before. You or people at your table will predict everything. Your interactions with NPCs will be fine, but not memorable. If an NPC here is going to be memorable, it will likely require a 2nd product that makes them more interesting, thus giving us rose-tinted glasses to look back at these NPCs and re-characterize them as more vital than they are now. An interesting side-note about this:

I played this module/scenario years ago, mostly forgotten. I had a chance to run it recently, but only had about 1 day notice that I would be doing it, and I was only able to get about 3 hours to prep. This meant I couldn't even read the GM forum -- I had enough time to read & highlight the module, to make maps, and that was it. In some cases, I couldn't even prep enemy stat blocks. For example:

Having said that, it was still a pretty OK game. The gang said they had fun. And it didn't run long. This should tell GMs something: this game doesn't need a huge amount of prep time, and it'll easily fit into a 4 hour time slot. I even ran the optional encounter. Still ended on time.

One of the great things about this super-simple module is that it was on the leading edge for one big aspect of the game. It did something 8 years ago that most scenarios nowadays take for granted (modules didn't always embrace this back then):

One thing about this module that was entertaining: the fights were difficult. Nobody died, but characters kept falling unconscious. What was doubly interesting is that the team had a couple level 3s but were in low tier, so they were overpowered for this module. However, I got lucky, and the terrain is better than previous reviews have let on. Here is the lucky part:

And here is the terrain part, which I think every GM should read:

Yes, the module is from the early days of Pathfinder. Yes, it has "old style" fights that are easily overcome by today's PCs. However, you can get a real boost in these fights if you pay attention to the maps and take into consideration the environment. In one of the encounters I didn't discuss, there is a forested area. There is nothing in the module about difficult terrain or what the forested parts mean in terms of combat rules, but there are general rules about tree trunks providing cover, and leaves providing concealment, and so on. As a GM, you can certainly give the fights a little "oomph" and still be within the rules.

Most enemies don't have a lot of tricks. Most fights are "normal." This is what I mean when I suggest the module is "simple." However, it is also enjoyable, and the way the module allows PCs to handle things makes for a good time.

The other reviewers are right -- the module/scenario is very straightforward. It's just this:

This is clearly from back in a time (2011) when Pathfinder Society actually did try to end games in 4 hours, unlike the 6-hour games they do nowadays.

So why did I have more fun than other recent reviewers? I think it's because we fit into the expectations of the product quite well. That is, we only had 4 PCs, and all were middle-of-the-road support characters; they could hit a little bit, heal pretty OK, do a few spells & skills... basically nobody was optimized, and everyone was well-rounded. We all expected someone else to bring a barbarian or heavy hitter, and it just didn't materialize. So, we had 2 clerics, each at 4th level, doing sorta OK melee damage. We had a magus, but only at 2nd level. We had an alchemist at 4th. We played up. That was it.

So on the very first fight, my character went down. In fact, 2 PCs went down and a summoned critter was killed. Of course with 2 clerics, there was a lot of healing to go around, so we survived. We went on to the next few rooms and the encounters were OK -- not deadly, not easy. Seemed like a good match for 4 "average joe" PCs.

We did enjoy the description of the environment inside the museum. I won't spoil it for you, but something weird is going on, and you have to puzzle it together to figure out how to interact with the environment properly.

Having said that, the "weird environment" is pretty much the only puzzle or non-combat thing you will do in this module. Everything else is just "swing sword, solve problems." It is NOT BAD for a simple night gaming with friends. However, it also is sorely lacking in many areas -- more modern Pathfinder Society products have discovered how to diversify and have many various challenges. This product is from a time before they learned that lesson.

So, we did something weird in this Pathfinder era: we went back to the D&D 3.5 edition books (which this module was written for), rolled up D&D 3.5 characters, and played through the module as it was originally intended. This has a huge effect on the game, as D&D 3.5 characters are much weaker than Pathfinder characters. So, PCs died. Some fights are tough, and the D&D characters couldn't survive it all. Using Pathfinder characters would certainly make the module a little more survivable. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the module as we played it.

Here is a general summary of the module concept, for potential players. You're in the town of Falcon's Hollow, and stuff's gonna go bad, again. As this is the 4th or 5th module in this series (Hollow's Last Hope, Crown of the Kobold King, Return of the Kobold King, maybe Carnival of Tears, and finally this), your characters should be well versed in the town and its trials/tribulations. The local gravekeeper is going to seek you out, giving you just moments of advanced warning before a horror scenario strikes the town. And then, if you survive that and want the town to survive too, you'll head out to discover who was behind it, and put a stop to things once and for all. The stakes are very high. It's entirely possible to lose every single soul in town. You can screw up that badly. (Technically, that's the ending my players earned, but I did shenanigans to help them out.)

Whatever you learned from the previous modules, and whatever you fought in the previous modules, and whatever feats/spells you needed in the previous modules... it's just more here. If you know what was happening in the previous modules, then brace yourself, and dive in for another helping. Don't expect anything surprisingly different.

And now here is a summary of the module for GMs:

Now for the biggest problems:

I did swap out a few monsters, just to increase diversity of fights. I did run some things differently, just to keep it from being monotonous. However, overall it was an OK conclusion to the Falcon's Hollow story arc. But it certainly could have been better.

On the GM forum, I just posted a note about how complicated one of the fights is. This module has a LOT of area effects that deal all kinds of weird damage. You could end up with 2 or 3 conditions on your PC from a single fight. Your GM could have to track 5 or 6 area effects with different saves per PC as they move around. So have pity on your GM, there is a lot to manage here.

ALSO, the GM who ran this module for me noted that it was a full social scenario followed by a full dungeon crawl scenario. In other words, if your GM is not rushing you, it's possible this could take almost twice as long as normal to get through. I just ran it in 5 hours myself, and to do that I skipped the optional fight, called one of the other fights halfway, and handwaved some social bits here & there to push forward. If your GM can run this faster than I did, praise them. However, if they can run it in less than 4 hours, squint at them and wonder what parts they skipped or glossed over.

OK. Having said all that, here's why I rate this 5 stars. It's totally fun. I actually drew out the town on a giant grid map -- a town that isn't shown in the product, but certain buildings are described and locations are given. I needed to do this not just for enjoyment, but also how in the world do the PCs interact with so many locations and NPCs without any visualization? So much would get lost & confused in the constant verbal barrage, so I added a map with minis and I think it helped. It was very fun for me at least. I hope the players liked it too.

In town you can meet a long lost ally from a previous season of Pathfinder Society. I was so excited to have a player at the table who actually took his character through the old scenario, so that they could be greeted warmly as old friends. It was enjoyable role play.

Also, if any of the players at the table have ever played through the Kingmaker campaign, they'll at least be familiar with the area, and some of the backstory. The backstory is good, and it seems to make sense with older products. However, as a GM I had to write out a lot of notes about the various noble houses and their origins/alliances before I could get it clear in my head.

After taking too long on the social side and still not having the full story, I urged the players on, toward the keep. The keep has a ton of stories to uncover, along with over a dozen skill checks just in the top level of the keep alone. Skill monkeys should be happy.

The lower level of the keep continues the skill checks but also turns violent. Here combat gets heavy. These are the fights with many status effects & a tough final showdown. However, if you've been indulging in the previous areas, you're going to be pressed for time in these final battles, and they're complicated too. Do not shortchange these encounters! They are actually good and very enjoyable if you run them right. Keep the game on a tight timer if you must. You need at least an hour for the lower dungeon, probably more. (If your group knows about using wire halos to show which minis have which conditions, and/or maybe table tents for status effects, it'll help. Also, bring height indicators if you've got 'em.)

Expect fights to be hard but not TPK-worthy. Expect skill checks to be hard but not un-achievable with work (well, my players missed some, but once they realized that they needed to put forward better numbers, they amped up and did OK with the rest of the checks). Expect social encounters to be hard if the party splits up (my group did), but easy otherwise.

Overall, this module seems... dare I say it... balanced. It's tough but most groups will survive and enjoy a few successes. It's varied, it has something for everyone, it's got a good story, you get to re-meet an old ally, maybe even there is a romance there somewhere... it's just awesome overall.

Try not to play this somewhere that has a tight schedule. Try not to rush. Try to play with a GM who can act out various NPCs well. Try to avoid a GM who railroads. Try to get all the info or much of the backstory. Have fun. It's a good time.

One more thing, for GMs:

I had a great time playing this. Note that if you’re the person who arrives to a game and tunes-out the introduction, be forewarned. You’re going to tune-out for a LONG time. This is an investigation scenario. It could be an hour or two before people stop talking and any combat happens.

If you’re a person who takes notes, cares about the NPCs, and talks to everyone… you’re going to have a great time. There are 4 or 5 major NPCs and a handful of side-characters that may or may not have relevance. At a certain point, time will matter, so you have to plan carefully and be willing to sacrifice or at least make tough decisions. In our game, one player was very upset that visiting the market was going to take so much time, and kept trying to argue for less time. In the end, we split up in order to cover more things more quickly, and it hurt us a little, but that was our decision.

To help us out, our GM laid out colored 3" x 5" cards, each with a name of a suspicious NPC. It helped us to track who was who and also to drop extra notes down by each card, as we discovered things. We used it as a sorting system, right on the table.

I see in the other reviews that the final fight is a cakewalk. For us it wasn’t. The real issue for us was:

If other GMs are going easy on that stuff, I can see how that would make the final encounter a cakewalk. For me, this was simply a ton of fun, and well balanced for a "normal" party. I intend to buy the module, and run it myself.

This is written from the perspective of a player. I've not read the module.

I very much enjoyed this module. I don't know if it's typical for this, but my GM just laid out the isometric map of the entire area, and said, "This is what you see when you use Overland Flight to get a bird's eye view. There is nothing set in stone about what you must do, so... ask questions and try stuff." And then we did. We invented whatever we felt might work. At one point, I unleashed about 40 earth elementals just for the chaos of it. That kind of thing would never be possible (or fun) in tight dungeon corridors, but here in an open area, the elementals could Earth Glide unseen and make a mess of things. The GM figured out how that might affect the area, and we got some credit for inventiveness, and then moved on to other fun ideas.

Basically, the whole module (except the end) is pretty much just an idea factory. Think things up, try 'em.

If anything is a weakness of the module, I would say it is the open-ended gameplay itself, which I've just praised! Why? Because with an unfair or unbending GM, this becomes an exercise in futility. A bad GM might freeze up in such an open-ended game, perhaps saying "That didn't work," to anything other than combat. However, for the game I'm in, the GM accepts creative ideas. So we tested a LOT of things. Some worked, some didn't. It was a good experience.

Also, if you ever wanted your character to feel heroic, one nice thing about this module is that there are a LOT of helpless captives you might be able to rescue. I don't mean, "There are a dozen captives, placed in random locations." Instead, I mean, "There are maybe hundreds of captives, and you will likely see dozens killed, but you will also free scores and scores of them." We ended up mapping out an escape route for the freed slaves, and just exploring the surrounding wilderness to figure out the safest route to civilization was an enjoyable self-imposed mini-quest. Nothing in the module mandates that you save everyone. Your mission is actually to do something else. So we just saved people because we wanted to, and the module made it possible, and enjoyable.

Overall, I'd say that modules 1 & 4 in this adventure path have really been enjoyable for me. If you're feeling creative, this module might be right up your alley.

...and I'd be OK to play it a 5th time. The module can't be bad or even mediocre if I'm willing to play it so many times. I enjoy myself every time. So that's why I'm giving it 4 stars.

I don't find any part of the module to be impressive, but neither is anything bad or even merely "meh." All parts seem to work just fine. I don't find the module to be flexible, either -- so if the GM is allowed to change things up for each replay, I haven't seen it. All 4 plays have been mostly the same.

However, how each group handled the encounters was very different. I got to see PCs try stealth, brute force combat, diplomacy, and subterfuge. I bribed my way through one game, buying as many successes as I could.

Overall, pretty good.

Here is how the first minutes of the game started, for my level 8 bard (archaeologist):

OK, back to general info. Pretty quickly I decided for myself that I was going to treat this module like a Bonekeep module. That is, the author made it deliberately hard (in the high tier, at least) and is hoping for a body count, so to counter that, it was time to burn through absurd amounts of expensive buffs. Riffle scroll of Communal Energy Resistance? You bet, who cares that it's 700 GP -- I need the 20 ER. Mage Armor, on the off-chance that we encounter ghosts? Yes please. Spider Climb? Yes. Use everything.

I won't say what the next encounter involved, but I will tell you that all I could do was to remain on the walls/ceiling thanks to Spider Climb, as even a single round in combat would have insta-killed my character, again.

The penultimate encounter: we thought it was the grand finale (as it was huge and 3 PCs were a single hit away from death), but then the BBEG pulled punches and we did something that really bugged me:

In the end, while I suspect that other people might have an OK time with this module, I did not. I feel that the encounters were swingy and imbalanced, potentially with multiple places for a TPK. I feel that the enemies were so completely tuned to go toe-to-toe with the party's barbarians and melee brutes that support classes just get sidelined or obliterated. As it stands I cannot recommend this product.

I just played this module at DunDraCon on February 18, 2017. We had approximately 40 players for this giant multi-table game. At my particular table was Tonya Woldridge, along with a Venture Agent and a Venture Lieutenant. Eric Bennett was running.

I tell you that because I want you to understand that my review may be biased. I was at a table filled some of the best players in Pathfinder Society. Because of this, I am fighting a strong urge to rate this 5 stars, as it was simply the most enjoyable gaming I've experienced in Pathfinder Society in recent memory.

Some things I can tell are due to the module itself. The opening was insane (and good), as the gem brawl turned into a bloodbath of epic proportions. Other reviewers have commented about how chaotic and fun that was. The next 2 encounters were run-of-the-mill combats, though I see some other reviewers liked them a lot.

Some things I can tell are due to the people I played with. The theater encounter? It was absolutely hilarious, due to both Tonya and the Venture Agent actually improvising funny puns and verbal barbs at the gaming table. The non-stop banter and cheesy over-acting was excellent.

The final fight (and re-fight) was so-so as far as the module goes (it drags a bit). However, I personally had a wildly fun time, as the Venture Lieutenant at our table was playing a "Bless Equipment cleric" (oracle?) and boosted my barbarian through the roof. I did hugely inappropriate damage thanks to all of his buffs, and had a great time in the process.

At one point a player asked to stop for just a moment, and he said, "I just want to say how nice it is to play with people who know the rules and know how to complement each other's strengths without stepping on toes. This has been amazing."

He was right.

In Pathfinder Society, you are only supposed to play a module once for credit (2x if you play Core). I had some GM stars and decided to use one for a replay of this module, since all my friends were playing it.

So let me first say that this is not a module worth a replay. I used a star as an excuse to hang out with my friends.

Having said that, I now have the ability to review this module twice, with a 3 year gap between each play through. So let's show you how the module was very, very differently presented by 2 GMs, and the parts that were the same.

Playthrough #1, 2014

Playthrough #2, 2017

My suggestion? If you're going to play this (or run this) limit it to 4 players, max. Maybe 3 players with a pre-gen. That would get this module back to being a challenge.

This product has a problem. It's too much of a good thing, crammed in too tightly. In the end, it fails because of its own eagerness to rush you through all the stuff provided.

I played in the high tier (10-11) and with a great GM. We are some of the more experienced players in our area. So when the game kicked off, we were swiftly coordinating on solutions to each problem. However, as one of the previous reviewers noted, sometimes we would barely finish a round or two of combat before it was called. Because we kept track of initiative on 3" x 5" cards (crossing out each prior initiative number and writing in a new one), it quickly became apparent why we were being rushed through the encounters: we had thirteen initiative-tracked encounters in our 5 hour game, plus a handful of non-combat encounters that didn't have initiative rolls.

You might imagine that a person would get encounter fatigue after having crammed 9 or 10 encounters into 4 hours and then the GM says, "Hang on, we still have multiple encounters to go. Roll for initiative. Again." It was just wave after wave of elementals. I cannot imagine how tough (and how "wow we are in a meat grinder") this must have felt for the less experienced players.

Here is what's scary about this. Three months ago, when season 8 was announced, I posted a story about it on Reddit. You'll notice one of the comments there was, "I don't look forward to an entire season where Ambrus Valsin sends us into plane x to retrieve some artifact, we kill a bunch of elementals of that type and some sort of genie as the boss and then finish the mission." Full of hope, I countered that we were about to get a season full of weird Planescape-like stuff.

And yet here we are. The season kicked off by doing almost exactly what that negative comment predicted. How could it have been so pessimistic and prescient? I'm going to steadfastly cling to hope about the rest of the season, but man, Paizo, you're shaking me. Please don't let that negative comment on Reddit turn out to be an accurate prediction of how the rest of the season plays out!

No spoilers about plot in this review, but it does have some meta-gamey info about the difficulty level.

Leading up to this game, I heard of 2 other local groups that tackled this scenario/module, and in each case multiple PCs died. So I came into the module forewarned. I bought some extra gear and tried to buff up. I was a level 10 druid with the standard pounce tiger companion. We played high tier.

Right next to our table, another group was doing the same module at low tier. In low tier nobody died and they finished the game in 4 or 4.5 hours.

In our game, 1 PC died, almost everyone went unconscious multiple times, and my animal companion should have died (an ally killed my attacker just moments before it got a turn). Oh, and it took 5.5 hours to play through the scenario, and that's with the GM avoiding the first encounter (diplomacy builds bypassed it) and he called the 2nd fight halfway through. I suspect it would have been 6 hours otherwise.

So of the 4 games I've seen/played/heard about, 3 caused PC death. That puts this module up there in terms of lethality. However, it's a new module, so maybe over time other groups will find ways to trivialize the encounters. You never know.

What I can say is that the monsters have a lot of moving parts at high levels. The GM actually had us looking up rules while he ran monsters, since there a lot of powers/abilities to adjudicate. If you are GMing this, know that some fringe feats from Dirty Tactics Toolbox are used by NPCs, so you'll need some extra planning time to learn about those and how to use them (if you're not already familiar).

I would have to say that this module at high tier felt like some of the older modules that had a "hard mode." Remember those? Like Weapon In The Rift, where hard mode meant the monster CRs were like 1 higher than normal? This module felt like that. It was very do-able, not terrible if you're competent, but also not a cakewalk. If your group is shaky or not well-organized, it will cost you in this one.

So first, I want to agree & disagree with Matt Baker's review, right before this review.

Regarding the artwork, Matt is correct. On this cover, I stared at it for a while trying to figure out if the featured enemy on the cover had bone armor on. It took me a while to puzzle out that the bones were an unrelated background scene. I also couldn't figure out what the flying humanoid was -- I thought his shoulder was his head, so it took me a while to find the face and realize it was probably a leaping dwarf. On the 2nd module cover, the same issue happens -- the background scene is just... unrelated to the fat giant on the cover, so it's difficult to discern what's going on. This artwork problem is not doing the modules justice.

Having said that, I do not mind that the artist (or the art director who guided the artist) has envisioned giants as creepy mutilated freaks. In fact I like it.

Now, one thing to cover that was mentioned in the product discussion (but not yet here in the reviews) is that there is a 100% TPK moment in this module. Here, let me explain:

...So even the best team may be dead before the half way mark, and if you have players who put all their time into their character creation only to have to create new ones almost right away, well that may earn you some sour, unhappy players. So watch out for that.

Other than that, the module is fun. My GM flew through encounters and railroaded the entire 2nd half (the town defense), but I could tell instantly that it was supposed to be a wide-open tension-filled scene with lots of things for the characters to tackle, in ANY order. So that's how I came at it when I ran it -- a desperate race to solve problems before they all blew up in the PCs' faces. Also, there is plenty of room in the module for fun NPCs, interesting ties to the community, etc.

This is in response to David Kelk's review. I am going to respond to David directly, but I'd encourage all GMs to read this anyway, to make sure they're running the high tier encounters fairly. Read on.

Thanks to Paizo customer Majuba for helping me with the item caster level calculations.

I had a great time playing this with Mitch @ Endgame. Mitch was smart -- he may have heard us talking before the game, and realized we were all pretty much overly-prepared power-gamers who were going to brutalize the combat encounters (even though we were level 9s playing up). So, there was a lot of role play instead.