For decades, the tiny village of Ravenmoor has existed quietly on the upper reaches of the Lampblack River, far from the centers of civilization in Varisia. Linked to the outside world only by an overgrown, mostly forgotten trail, the villagers are comfortable with their isolation. Their ways are humble, quaint, and at times odd, and when travelers come, they find the town awkward and unmemorable. Certainly, the lack of a village inn, the oppressive humidity, and the bug-infested moors and swamps that surround the village do little to encourage visitors. When a clerk in the city of Magnimar discovers that, due to a clerical error, the village of Ravenmoor hasn’t paid taxes in years, a tax collector is sent to the distant community to settle accounts with its mayor. When the tax collector fails to return, however, a group of adventurers must travel to the town during its Founders’ Feast celebration to investigate his disappearance. Did he really make off with the taxes for himself, as the villagers suspect? Or did he never make it out of Ravenmoor at all?
Feast of Ravenmoor is an adventure for 3rd-level characters, written for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and compatible with the 3.5 edition of the world’s oldest RPG. It features a terrifying adventure set in a rural village in the frontier realm of Varisia, and a brand-new monster eager to torment and frighten unsuspecting adventurers.
Written by Brandon Hodge
Pathfinder Modules are 32-page, high-quality, full-color, adventures using the Open Game License to work with both the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the standard 3.5 fantasy RPG rules set.
For the most part, the investigation part of went well and the party had fun getting to know the creepy small village. But know that this requires some effort on the GM's part - you need to act things out well to get the back woods creepy feel going. That made the early events fun for everyone.
One flaw I would note - actually two flaws wrapped into one - is that there's a point where the party needs to go to a certain location for things to continue and I pretty much had to have an NPC plead with them to go that way (flaw 1), and make sure they said enough to motivate the party to clear out the rest of the module. This then sets the party on several encounters in a row without breaks (flaw 2). They could theoretically take breaks, but it doesn't match up with the timing crunch the module tries to put on them - so most of the combat in the module take place all in one shot, ending with a challenging one.
Encounters were good and challenging for an APL 3. The party will be tested to make sure they have diverse abilities. The end encounter creature was pretty cool, but I would say it should be +1 on the CR. It just has too many abilities/defenses. A high RP, non-power-gaming group may be overwhelmed quickly, so play to your group and don't be too mean with the tactics in the fights prior.
If you have time, I would suggest read through it once, and try to come with a way to break up the timing of some of the encounters and re-distribute them a bit involving more of the town. That would get this one an extra star.
Intriguing mysteries, yet none of them explained properly.
I have played this module as a DM with three players. I had some problems about difficulty of this scenario while playing though most of them were because of my own faults; I didn't let PCs to rest after the festival, I didn't reduce the power of the enemies as PCs were only four not three, blah blah... However, I guessed it would be hard even if my party were composed of four members. The overall difficulty is a bit high, especially since most of the encounters are in the last chapter of the scenario with no chance of rest on the way.
The major problem I am pointing is not about the scenario's difficulty, however. The first half of the scenario is consist of tourism in a mysterious, suspicious, and isolated village. Even though the villagers want to make the strangers in town believe there is nothing to see in the village, everything is somewhat wrong in some ways, and it is natural for PCs to guess that the tax collector did not escape the village and he is still at somewhere. My PCs were so excited to reveal the mysteries waiting for them.
Now the problem arises. The scenario encourages PCs to solve the mystery with Hack & Slash sword fight. After futile investigation PCs have made at day time, some cultists ambush the PCs at night and give them reason to get things rough. They even give the PCs a time limit. While PCs cannot see the response of 'innocent' villagers after questioning about the surprise attack at the last night, they just get into fight in an abandoned farm and a mystery circle in a crop yard. Moreover, every answer to their curiosity is there, so they don't need to struggle finding out what's going on. Since the friendly mayor is now mad cultist lord at night with absolute hostile attitude, PCs just have to kill him and solve every problem in the village. It is just wrong solution to such a mystery story.
The Feast of Ravenmoor is a great adventure for the party looking for an interlude to the dungeon crawl or as a go-between adventure in a larger campaign. As a gamemaster I had fun role-playing the NPCs as simple "swamp people" often using cajun accents for flavor.
The investigative flair of the module can be quite entertaining and was a good change up for my group. My players were both overly suspicious and perplexed until the final battle which was quite deadly. Gamemasters should prepare the final battle in separate waves or events to prevent a TPK. Otherwise a very solid module for a low-level party.
Ravenmoor does seem out of place in Varisia, so it worked for me to use it as an immigrant town of Andorans and Taldorans which helped to link continuity.
(based on 19 ratings)
