"Bear Hunting," written by Mario Barbati, is part of an ongoing series set in the Great City. This is not a numbered adventure in a path, but instead, it concerns a mysterious event that will forever alter the Great City, setting the tone for future events. Throughout the year, 0one games will release a number of short adventures whose various plots are all somehow entwined with the event. Each will be a stand-alone adventure, designed to be played independently without a specific sequence and can be completed in a single evening’s play.
When a Bloodfang mercenary murders his captain and goes A.W.O.L., the Kharel seeks the aid of outsiders to track him down before he flees the city. However, once they capture the killer, a second question awaits, and the heroes must decide whether to surrender him to the justice of the military or the murdered captain’s vengeful widow.
"Bear Hunting" is designed using the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game system and is for 3rd-level player characters.
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This installment of "The Sinking" is 15 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page advertisement, 1 page back cover and 1 page SRD, leaving 9 pages of content, so let's check this out!
This being an adventure-review, the following text contains SPOILERS, so potential players should jump to the conclusion.
Still here? All right! After the PCs have supposedly found the gold-filled tomb of Furam (see the Plumb Line), a kind of gold rush has started on the sinkhole which has seen many a person hurt. Subsequently, the army has taken to guarding the place against intrusion, but sometimes, things just go wrong: A mercenary of the notorious Bloodfangs, a bugbear named Karoc Skullsplitter to be specific, has killed a captain of the guard and now the military is hard-pressed - immediate repercussions by them will be seen as revenge by the Bloodfangs and thus, the PCs are tasked with capturing Karoc Skullsplitter. There are irreconcilable factions after the murderer, though: The Kharel and the influential widow of the victim and both want the PCs to procure the fugitive.
Time is of the essence, though, as the bugbear has been seen entering a gang headquarter - which proves to be an elaborate trap that might take the gang leader as well as the PCs to the grave, while Karoc uses his allied gang of thugs, the winged angels to try and escape the city. In order to catch the perpetrator, the PCs will have to succeed in a neck-breaking chase through the streets while being peppered with arrows, caltrops, alchemist's fire and the like. When they finally catch up with the escapee, they'll be between the fronts - Karoc's trail in the wilderness leads right into an owlbear's cave and two dangerous opponents can thus be used against one another -just hope your players are smart enough not to get caught in the middle...
Once they, via any means, have returned the bugbear to their employer of choice, they will have made at least one powerful enemy, though...
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. The layout adheres to a 2-column standard and comes with some nice pieces of b/w-artwork as well a bookmarks. The fast-paced chase presented in this installment makes for a neat action-romp that is on the upper scale of difficulty without being unfair. The tie-ins with the metaplot of the Sinking are subtle and very much appreciated, as they start to evoke a sense of continuity, which I hope will be expanded in future installments. What can I say? Tough decisions, a neat chase and a furious finale -for less than 2 bucks. You'll be hard-pressed to find a better bang-for-buck ratio out there and thus my final verdict will be 5 stars - a great little scenario and apart from the extraordinary "Politics Unusual" and the weird "Animation" one of my favorites in the season so far.
Maybe I'm dense, how can you have adventures that aren't designed to be played in a specific order when adventures have to be keyed to levels and the levels are all played through in a specific order?
It means essentially that e.g. "Animation" is higher-level than "Bear Hunting", even though it came out before the latter. The adventures essentially are like episodes in a catastrophe movie - after the first one, there's the sinkhole and all of the adventures somehow touch upon the new landmark and it's ramifications. Hope that was helpful!
Like End says, these adventures are all like one-offs, but they have an overarching theme to them. The term "Season 1" does describe it quite well because the scenarios are episodic.
Maybe I'm dense, how can you have adventures that aren't designed to be played in a specific order when adventures have to be keyed to levels and the levels are all played through in a specific order?
Thanks for an awesomely accurate description Endzeitgeist!!!
Actually, the individual adventures do not have to be played in a specific order. The Seasons, not the individual adventures will be episodic in that the second season will feature a different overarching theme.
Personally, I like to run this style of adventure with several different groups, with each one participating with a different element concerning the same event.
Think of it episodically like a TV series such as the X-files or even Law & Order.
I'll only add that the first season adventures range in 1-4 levels. This way it's easy to order them in different ways and even exclude adventures that don't suit your gaming style. You can easily build your own campaign within each season.
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