Chapter 9: "Escape from Old Korvosa"
by Richard Pett
Old Korvosa is under quarantine, a sprawling slum contained by roadblocks and guardposts manned by remorseless Hellknights and sinister plague doctors. While the rest of Korvosa stifles under an increasingly brutal martial law, the quarantined streets of Old Korvosa descend into true bedlam. Yet the one man who may hold the truth behind the perils that have brought Korvosa to its knees is lost inside the quarantine zone. Can he be rescued from the clutches of a new menace rising in the festering pits of Old Korvosa, and what secrets does he know that could justify the bounties for his death?
This volume of Pathfinder presents an in-depth exploration of the rakshasas of the world of Golarion and reveals details on one of the world’s most sinister networks of assassins, the Red Mantis.
For characters of 7th to 10th 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.
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It had an enjoyable start and overall my players and I did have fun. The arkona palace was our least favorite part out of the entire AP for Curse of the Crimson Throne.
It had its frustrating moments, such as the PCs getting chased out of town without even a hint as to what to do until the next book shows up... but that's minor at best. This book has some amazing characters in it, especially the vile Arkonas.
And there are the usual magnificent backup articles, with my favorite being the one covering rakshasas. And the Red Mantis? Naaasty.
Escape starts with a bang and ends in a series of frustrations. The Quarantine, Pilts Swastel, Red Mantis all provide a great beginning and a promising lead up to the Arkonas. The Arkonas I thought were one of the more promising elements of the AP but I found them to be terribly squandered in this adventure.
The setup for the latter dungeon crawls rankles mightily and I couldn't help but be reminded of the Thieves Guild from the D&D movie. "Yes I will help you but first you must traverse the MAZE OF DEATH!" Then the Arkonas are unceremoniously dumped from the campaign. Like I said strong first half but pitters off quickly. The Vudran background and Rakshasa article are quite good though.
The storyline for the adventure is fantastic, well, right up until the Rakshasa's. The palace and dungeon are over the top. Though they seem appropriate based on the Rashasa's desire for lavish surroundings, they don't fit in with the story, city and especially not in Old Korvosa. The Rakshasa were not believable. I love everything else about this adventure, but in my game, I will be replacing the Rakshasa with something more in character with Old Korvosa.
The first half of the adventure (the events) continues with the great style of the CCT path, and the second half introduces a large dungeon which would be quite a "common dungeon crawl" but there's an amazing -simple but interesting- mobile dungeon and another -simple but interesting- encounter with the "engines" of the mobile dungeon. Work it out cleverly and you get an awesome experience out of this "common dungeon crawl". Great work Paizo!
I'm looking forward to seeing what they did to Rakshasas and I'm looking forward to Rich's adventure. He always does great stuff. (Sorry Nic but you got to admit its true).
I'm looking forward to seeing what they did to Rakshasas and I'm looking forward to Rich's adventure. He always does great stuff. (Sorry Nic but you got to admit its true).
Well, there's never anything BAD in a Pathfinder issue, it's alway just a matter of determining what your favorite thing is.
I'm sure you'll like he Red Mantis, and hopefully you'll like the adventure too - you're absolutely right about Pathfinder, I've just seen #8 and it is really outstanding on so many fronts.
I'm looking forward to seeing what they did to Rakshasas and I'm looking forward to Rich's adventure. He always does great stuff. (Sorry Nic but you got to admit its true).
Huzzah!
Don't apologise, he likes having his nose rubbed in it, it keeps him on his toes.
Only kidding - it's a tricky one to give too much away about really, think Escape from New York meets the French Revolution during the Black Death whilst perusing a Jeff Vandermeer Novel as rome burns and you're getting there.
It should run very fast paced and very unpredictably, everyone may well have a different take on this one at various stages and I hope it will translate into the most open-running adventure I've ever done for Paizo. Certainly I'm looking forward to seeing how it runs, as much as how it reads as the playtesting of segments of it ran very wildly.
Very brief skim of the pdf says this looks awesome. CotCT is really becoming something special, I'm itching to run it (we'll finally be starting mid-late May if RL doesn't catch up with us again). I'm in love with the Rakshasas already. Also BEST LOOKING BESTIARY EVER, is it just me or has the book yet again improved in terms of look? Though what on earth is going on with Laori Vaus picture? I mean I don't mind the old school anime look, and it kind of fits with the character, but it's so out of place amongst all the other artwork that it feels really jarring, hmm...
anyway, I'm mostly getting over-excited, now to get a giant mug of tea and curl up in front of the computer screen for a couple of hours reading and plotting...
So far this is looking great. I have read through the pdf but I don't get too in depth until I get my copy. Still so far this is looking really good. Though at the moment I wish there was a little more "time" for the PC's and Vencarlo to interact before the other rescue. (I will have to make time for that.) Great job as always.
I liked this module, its got a lot going for it. One thing I'd like to see that was missing in this one and past mods, is a bit more info, very brief, on some of the staff/guards at the major locations. At a minimum, just list their classes and races. In this mod, that applies to the Arkonas Palace. It applies to the Korvosan Guards, Sable Company, etc. Who's the 2nd in command of those? 3rd, etc. Maybe its in the guide, but in one of these mods it should be listed out.