Pathfinder Module W3: Flight of the Red Raven (OGL)

4.30/5 (based on 4 ratings)
Pathfinder Module W3: Flight of the Red Raven (OGL)
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A wilderness adventure for 4th-level characters.

The Vernal Key has been stolen from the town of Azurestone and the notorious Red Raven is the culprit. With a terrible winter setting in, the small community faces a gruesome fate without its protection. To recover the Key, the heroes must face off against brazen outlaws, freezing weather, and dangerous predators, but the trail leads to even greater peril. For the Red Raven's path heads straight into the Jarl's Prison, a maze of ice and snow from which there is no escape!

Written by David Schwartz, the winner of the GameMastery Module Open Call contest—the best among over 150 applicants.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-101-5

GameMastery Modules are 32-page, high-quality, full-color, OGL-compatible adventures for use with the world's most popular fantasy RPG. All GameMastery Modules include four pre-made characters so players can jump right into the action, and full-color maps to enhance play.

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4.30/5 (based on 4 ratings)

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Original and Significant Inspiration

4/5

NO SPOILERS

I ran Flight of the Red Raven for a standard four-PC party, updating the module where occasionally necessary to use Pathfinder RPG rules (it's written for D&D 3.5). I thought it did a great job keeping up a sense of pace and excitement while introducing some memorable NPCs. There's little that grounds the adventure in Golarion, which I guess is a plus or minus depending on what setting you use. The encounters, especially in the latter third, definitely get challenging, and I think using slightly higher-level or more numerous PCs than recommended would be better for an average group. Still, this was a fun adventure and one worth playing despite its age.

SPOILERS!:

The module begins in the town of Azurestone, a mining and farming community near the Fog Peak Mountains. Several reasons of a mundane nature are suggested for why the PCs may be in Azurestone during its annual harvest festival, and the module encourages the GM to run some carnival style games and other little events to get the PCs familiar with the town and its inhabitants. "PCs in town for a festival" is one of the more common openings to an adventure in RPG gaming, but it works just fine here. As we'll see, however, the PCs won't be staying in Azurestone long, so this isn't an adventure where it's crucial they establish a strong connection to the community. (It might also be worth noting that, although formally Azurestone is in Galt, there's no flavour or setting-lore related to the "perpetual revolution" there--this adventure could easily be set anywhere there's a town, a forest, and some mountains).

The morning after the festival, the townsfolk are shocked to learn that the Vernal Key has been stolen from the town's church. The Vernal Key is a minor magical artefact that has kept winter from descending upon Azurestone for generations, and witnesses saw a local folk hero (a Robin Hood type) named the Red Raven make off with it. The PCs, of course, are asked by the townsfolk to catch the Red Raven and return the Vernal Key before a harsh winter (which the community has never prepared for) descends on the town. If the PCs don't have a good tracker with them, an NPC joins them. It's a solid beginning to the module. There's a potentially fun bit where, on the night of the theft, accomplices of the Red Raven try to distract the PCs by either getting them drunk, seducing them, or starting a massive bar brawl.

The chase begins! The next major part of the module consists of the PCs following the Red Raven's trail across some rugged plains, through a forest called The Boarwood, across the Kantele River, and then into the foothills of the Fog Peak Mountains. It's not very likely the PCs actually catch up to the Red Raven (he has a head start and does some additional forced marching, while the PCs probably have to slow down to keep from losing his trail), but the module does have a sidebar covering what happens if they do. The pursuit is more than just movement rates, terrain modifiers, survival skill checks to keep on the trail, and random encounters. Outlaw allies of the Red Raven have set up several ambushes to help ease the Red Raven's escape. There's an attempt to bury the group in a rockslide as they pass through a quarry, lure them into a false campsite where a giant spider lurks, knock them into the water as they cross a narrow rope bridge across the river, and more.

I think the encounters here are handled well, and they clearly serve the purpose of adding some excitement to the pursuit. The Red Raven's allies are all given names and personalities, which was smart thinking since it's likely some of them could get captured and interrogated. Their goal is to slow down pursuit, and not necessarily kill anyone--though the tactics they choose could certainly be lethal! The issue I had when running this is that the module provides that if any of the outlaws are captured after any of the ambushes and successfully persuaded to cooperate, they'll lead the PCs to their campsite where the rest of the outlaws are resting. In my game, this happened after the very first ambush, which curtailed the possibility of any further planned encounters. Rewarding PC success is a good part of adventure design, but it was simply too easy and too much of a reward.

Once in the Fog Peak Mountains, there are a couple of encounters--one versus "hoary muntjacs" (see the paragraph on the appendices below) and another versus a juvenile white dragon. Assuming the PCs are still on the Red Raven's trail, they'll then follow him right into a place they can't easily escape--a prison demiplane! There's a bit to unpack here, some of the details of which the PCs might have learned from interrogating the outlaws earlier, and some of which they can learn from other NPCs inside the prison. The magical prison takes the form of a series of icy tunnels and caverns. It was built millennia ago by the Caliphate of the Djinn to house a traitorous member of their group who tried to poison his sovereign and assume the throne. This genie is still trapped within the prison, and his name has passed into legend as the Jarl of the North Wind. But why has the Red Raven stolen the Vernal Key from Azurestone and raced into the prison? Love! Aww, shucks. The Red Raven's girlfriend, a fellow adventurer named Geppa, led a crew to explore the mountains when they entered the demiplane and became trapped. The Red Raven learned through hiring a diviner what had happened to Geppa, and how the Vernal Key was actually a magical key that could allow the bearer to create an exit.

But whether they think of him as a villain or a hero, the PCs still have to locate the Red Raven within the prison demiplane--and there are several winding routes to explore and dangers to overcome. Most likely, the PCs will come across Geppa first, and then encounter the Red Raven for the first time in a corker of an encounter that includes (on various sides of the conflict) one ogre, the Red Raven (as a prisoner), four hardened followers of the ogre, two ice mephits, four zombies, and (probably) Geppa and another adventurer named Teko. It's a lot for the GM to handle, but I actually really liked it. I think too often in modern Pathfinder adventure-writing the number of foes is very small, and the PCs (and their pets) tend to outnumber the bad guys. Here, you get a big, complex battle with multiple sides and a lot of uncertainty about what should happen. And, there's still the big final battle against the Jarl of the North Wind in a separate encounter before the PCs are able to escape. The series of encounters in the demiplane could wear down a group if they're not careful about husbanding their resources. The adventure concludes with some alternative suggestions on how Azurestone reacts if they get the Vernal Key back and whether or not the PCs arrested the Red Raven.

The final few pages of the module consist of some appendices. Appendix 1 introduces two new monsters. One is a "hoary muntjac," which is essentially a reindeer's body with a wolf's head--not a particularly noteworthy contribution to the game. The other new monster is a "snowdrifter," a murderous aberration of cold and darkness. It has some interesting special abilities, and the artwork is pretty cool. Appendix 2 covers the Fog Peak Mountains. Most of the section consists of the history of a frost giant kingdom that once existed in the mountains, and then there's a brief list of some creatures that might be encountered there and adventure hooks that might draw PCs there. I've seen much better gazetteers, and the section mostly came across as filler. The last page has the stats for four Level 4 Iconics that can be used to play the adventure (though I think they'd be hard pressed in some of the more challenging encounters in the game).

The inside front- and back- covers are devoted to maps. The encounter maps are quite large in terms of their total number of 5" squares (and one of the maps has a scale of one square = 40 feet, making for some ginormous encounters!). I think it's important to have some encounters that start at large distances (to make ranged weapon increments relevant, for example), but a GM is going to need to spend some time thinking about how to handle them in terms of flip-mats. There's also a quarter-page map showing the path the Red Raven takes from Azurestone to the Jarl's prison. This was poorly done, as there's not even a distance scale--crucial when we're talking about a day-by-day pursuit where land speeds and terrain modifiers are supposed to be taken into account.

In terms of artwork, I'd label it as serviceable. It's clearly in an earlier phase of Paizo's ability to get top-notch artists. Geppa and the Red Raven look pretty good, even if the former clearly suffers from the "female adventuring in the winter in essentially a bikini" problem. The jarl doesn't look scary to me, but that could be because of his hilarious slippers.

Overall, I thought this was a fun, fresh adventure. There's some role-playing opportunities at the beginning, several wilderness encounters in the middle, and some dungeon-style exploration (in an interesting locale) at the end. The module pays very good attention to detail, and there's lots to work with in terms of background and motivations of the NPCs and monsters. The biggest contribution of Flight of the Red Raven, however, is bringing the concept of masked adventurers into the Pathfinder setting. The Red Raven presented here is the same Red Raven that, years later, became the Iconic Vigilante, which is a pretty cool development!


Nature all around, boys. Take it all in.

4/5

This is a delightfully different module. Nothing excites me more than the heavy-use of the environment not only as a setting but as an obstacle for the players. This adventure exceeds the typical plunder-the-dungeon set up and goes with a new twist of having to track down your enemy through untamed lands. My group and I rather enjoyed this adventure. It is solid, it is fun, it is very easy to run and read up on if you are in a tight fix for a time or need an adventure as soon as possible, and is even topped off with a cool ice fortress.

The only thing missing is Dan Akroyd and John Candy.




a modarate read

4/5

I will start by saying that this is a wonderful module. action packed, cinematic, memorable... but several issues forced me to reduce a star.

first and most noticeable is the PC - triggered events that takes place too often. the PC's just happen to be around at critical moments, and my players will never accept such a thing.
the second issue is that the writer's talent isn't really showing. the module is not fun to read, and I did not feel as immersed in the experience as I usually do.

still, this one is defiantly up to Paizo's standards.




Scarab Sages

That's a nice, shiny, new cover you've got there Paizo guys. I like!


Is this shipping soon? Been looking forward to it for a while now.

Paizo Employee CEO

Rauol_Duke wrote:
Is this shipping soon? Been looking forward to it for a while now.

Next week.

-Lisa


Woo Hoo!!!

Liberty's Edge

Is there a reason this isn't showing up in my Pathfinder Modules subscription? My last shipped module was The Demon Within, but the next module to ship it says is Tower of the Last Baron.

Liberty's Edge

It says the same for me! Any info?


Dryder wrote:
It says the same for me! Any info?

Me three! And I've got it set so that my Pathfinder ships on my Module subscription. ARRRGGGHH!


I just checked mine, and me four.

Sovereign Court

Not a subscriber! Unrelated question: Where in Golarion does this take place?

Dark Archive Contributor

molrak wrote:
Is there a reason this isn't showing up in my Pathfinder Modules subscription? My last shipped module was The Demon Within, but the next module to ship it says is Tower of the Last Baron.

The subscriptions page is a bit off. Gary, Lord of All Code, is working on making it tick better and its getting the help it needs.

Despite what it says, Flight of the Red Raven *is* the next module coming out and slated to be shipped to subscribers soon.

Dark Archive Contributor

cappadocius wrote:
Not a subscriber! Unrelated question: Where in Golarion does this take place?

In Galt, near the Boarwood and continues a bit south.

The Exchange

Look at the pretty shiny Pathfinder Branding!

Scarab Sages

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber

edit: lol..my answer was two posts above.

In Galt, huh? So will the bloody, revolutionary nature of the country be explored?


molrak wrote:
Is there a reason this isn't showing up in my Pathfinder Modules subscription? My last shipped module was The Demon Within, but the next module to ship it says is Tower of the Last Baron.

Or in the downloads?

The module is 'ready to be shipped' and usually I have it available to download at this time... :)

Hyb'


molrak wrote:
Is there a reason this isn't showing up in my Pathfinder Modules subscription? My last shipped module was The Demon Within, but the next module to ship it says is Tower of the Last Baron.

I think it's because this is a standalone module, not part of the subscription.


Jason Bergschneider wrote:
I think it's because this is a standalone module, not part of the subscription.

It's a part of the subscription, I believe.

Sovereign Court

Jason Bergschneider wrote:
molrak wrote:
Is there a reason this isn't showing up in my Pathfinder Modules subscription? My last shipped module was The Demon Within, but the next module to ship it says is Tower of the Last Baron.
I think it's because this is a standalone module, not part of the subscription.

This is a Pathfinder Module and so it has to be part of any pathfinder module subscription. There isn't anything like a stand alone pathfinder module.

Cheers,
Günther


what level are the PC's at the end?

Why can't this info be printed on the cover????

If Paizo want people to buy these Modules it would help the buyer link them together if we knew the level at the end of the mod.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

This is a lot of crunchy fun. Thanks, David. It's one of those modules I'd want to run with a co-DM. ("Entombed with the Pharaohs" is another.)

A note and a question:

Spoiler:

The topology of the prison is something called RP2, real projective 2-space.
What was the working name of the hoary muntjac?

Dark Archive Contributor

Guennarr wrote:
Jason Bergschneider wrote:
molrak wrote:
Is there a reason this isn't showing up in my Pathfinder Modules subscription? My last shipped module was The Demon Within, but the next module to ship it says is Tower of the Last Baron.
I think it's because this is a standalone module, not part of the subscription.

This is a Pathfinder Module and so it has to be part of any pathfinder module subscription. There isn't anything like a stand alone pathfinder module.

Cheers,
Günther

As Guennarr said. It is a Pathfinder Module, so yes, it is a part of the subscription. If you're experiencing problems with your subscription you should send an email to customer service.

There actually is something like a stand-alone Pathfinder module, though, Guennarr. There are three: D0, TC1, and D1.5. I don't know if they go in the subscription or not, but they are 16 pages and therefore aren't normal Pathfinder modules.

Dark Archive Contributor

stuart haffenden wrote:

what level are the PC's at the end?

Why can't this info be printed on the cover????

If Paizo want people to buy these Modules it would help the buyer link them together if we knew the level at the end of the mod.

The starting level is on the front cover. You can always safely assume characters will gain 1 or 2 levels in an adventure. :)

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Mike McArtor wrote:
There actually is something like a stand-alone Pathfinder module, though, Guennarr. There are three: D0, TC1, and D1.5. I don't know if they go in the subscription or not, but they are 16 pages and therefore aren't normal Pathfinder modules.

None of those are part of the subscription. The subscription includes only the regularly scheduled 32-page modules.

Dark Archive Contributor

Vic Wertz wrote:
Mike McArtor wrote:
There actually is something like a stand-alone Pathfinder module, though, Guennarr. There are three: D0, TC1, and D1.5. I don't know if they go in the subscription or not, but they are 16 pages and therefore aren't normal Pathfinder modules.
None of those are part of the subscription. The subscription includes only the regularly scheduled 32-page modules.

There you go. Answers from on high.

Thanks Vic! ^_^

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

Thinking more about my previous post.

The prison is magic. Magic things happen. None of the following has to be the case, because it's magic.

But...

Spoiler:

If the Jarl's Prison really were based on the topology of RP2, then interesting things happen. RP2 is non-orientable, like the Moebius band or the Klein bottle. That means that, if Geppa and the Red Raven were at P5, and the Raven went "north" to C, and passed through to the bottom of the map, and then made his way back to P5, Geppa would still be there, but they would each see the other as left-right reversed.

Which might make people suspicious. Or which might make reading notes harder.

Never mind. Math stuff. It's magic. Just go with that.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

I like the cover, too. It reminds me of the Iron Heroes stuff. Is it the same artist?

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

waltero wrote:
I like the cover, too. It reminds me of the Iron Heroes stuff. Is it the same artist?

The cover artist is Eric Deschamps.


Just got this as PDF via my subscription, looks fun.

One thing that caused me immediate hilarity was the use of Finnish names. Most of the NPCs in Azurestone seem to have Finnish (or pseudo-Finnish) names, and there's a house called "Sahtisauna" -- which means pretty much what it's described as, "The Sahtisauna is a combination bathhouse and brewery".

Nothing wrong with that, it's an obscure language that probably sounds "alien" enough for most people. For us Finns, though, it's one thing that you'd have to change if running the module -- I have a hard time picturing my players talking to an inhabitant of a fantasy town named Antero Ikonen and keeping a straight face :D

Contributor

Petri Wessman wrote:
One thing that caused me immediate hilarity was the use of Finnish names.

Heh. When this adventure got integrated into Golarian it ended up farther south than I had expected. :-)


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
David Schwartz wrote:
Petri Wessman wrote:
One thing that caused me immediate hilarity was the use of Finnish names.
Heh. When this adventure got integrated into Golarian it ended up farther south than I had expected. :-)

Yeah, I have to say Galt seemed like a pretty odd choice to me too, I think it would've made a lot more sense to place it at least as far north as Ustalav/Lastwall, if not even further.


So I just tried to run this as a one-shot and was sorely disappointed. It has a lot of potential, but was unclear in crucial points. For instance, when presented with the false trail vs. the real trail, my players successfully found the real trail. Unfortunately, I could not figure out where the trail picked up in the book.

The initial romp through the forest also seemed a bit bizarre.

Perhaps I just didn't put enough time into game prep, and that would be my fault as a DM. Therefore, rather than actually say this is a bad review, take it rather as a warning to be prepared to spend a couple hours ahead of time figuring out how the module relates to itself.

For now, Dungeon Crawl Classics will continue to be my favorite one-shot adventures :)


It looks like book distribution (via Ingram) never received this one.

Former VP of Finance

tbug wrote:
It looks like book distribution (via Ingram) never received this one.

After checking the website of the distributor that serves Ingram, it looks like they currently have 20 on order. So, they should be showing up there soon. I have no idea why they haven't ordered it previously, but I'll do some poking around and perhaps find out.


I picked this up last night on my weekly shopping trip to The Compleat Strategist in NYC. It looks like a lot of fun; can't wait to run it!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

This is a really good module.

I've made a simple map of Azuretone for use in my game. Anyone is free to use it if they like.


Mactaka wrote:
In Galt, huh? So will the bloody, revolutionary nature of the country be explored?

Nope. I got this module - and downloaded the PSS "To Scale the Dragon" - in the hopes that they would be affected by the revolution. They weren't. They didn't mention the revolution at all. I guess the locations were too remote to be frequented by revolutionaries.


Aaron Bitman wrote:
Mactaka wrote:
In Galt, huh? So will the bloody, revolutionary nature of the country be explored?
Nope. I got this module - and downloaded the PSS "To Scale the Dragon" - in the hopes that they would be affected by the revolution. They weren't. They didn't mention the revolution at all. I guess the locations were too remote to be frequented by revolutionaries.

Maybe because the module is not Pathfinder specific?


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I know it's 3.5, but I would still love this module to be opened up for Pathfinder Society play.


Thread re-necro: as Majuba said... huh... 3 years ago... will this ever be made part of PFS? :)

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