The Good Stuff
1) 4 quests is the right number for a scenario like this and makes it easier to organize and run, especially as an intro to PF adventure
2) The 1st encounter has some neat mechanics and is a lot of fun. It challenges players in a way they generally aren't challenged.
The Not So Good Stuff
1) I'm not a big fan of having separate authors for each quest as has been done here and with other quests. It can lead to incoherence and contradictions. I think it would be better if all 4 quests had been written by the same person.
2) The story here is not really suitable for newcomers to PF and PFS play. Folks who haven't played PF before aren't going to follow all the ins and outs of PF Society history that is contained in this scenario. The story focus of this would have been better in a higher level adventure where the players are more likely to have a sense of the Society and its history.
All in all, I'm not a big fan of this adventure, particularly for newcomers. I'll continue to use Fallen Family, Broken Name as my "go to" evergreen as it has a solid, self-contained story that makes a lot more sense to people with little or no PF experience.
If this were a module, I'd give it 5/5 stars. However as a PFS scenario, I can only give it 2. As other reviews have noted, there's far too much here for a 4-5 hour PFS time slot. Give yourself a lot of time when preparing and try to get a copy of Distant Realms for additional information on Dis not contained in the scenario.
I played this yesterday and then picked up a copy at local Free RPG Day event. I’m generally not a fan of goblin stuff, but I played so we could run a table for a couple folks who are goblin-ophiles and because the boons are pretty neat.
I was reminded of the old
Spoiler:
Dungeonland and Beyond the Magic Mirror
modules, though I preferred them to this one.
There is a significant link to a previous goblin scenario.
Spoiler:
In We B4 Goblins, your goblin PCs murder a half-elf woman. It turns out that her son is present, and he hides in some sort of Bag of Holding while the goblin PCs are killing his mother. In this module, you get to travel to the world where he has been trapped, destroy much of what he has created, and probably traumatize him further.
As you can imagine, I’m super excited by the promise of goblins as a core playable race.
