Throne of Night—Book #1: Dark Frontier (PFRPG) PDF

I would love to give this product a higher rating but it has been written by a fraudster, Gary McBride, who tricked 315 people into giving him $40,000 through Kickstarter and refused to communicate with them for 4 years now. Despite multiple appeals from backers he has backed over 520 other kickstarters since then, logging in every week though seemingly unable to respond to his backers products. Shame on Paizo for selling the products of a con man and allowing him to continue profiting from rpg fans.

For details of the swindle and Gary McBride’s backing record see https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/730004812/throne-of-night-a-pathfinder -rpg-adventure-path/comments

I have been cautiously awaiting the release of this book ever since Way of the Wicked, FireMountainGames first product. The long wait did not disappoint, I have to say thinking back I am floored by the amount of value you get for only USD$10. In fact Throne of Night Book I: Dark Frontier is better even than Knot of Thorns (Book I of Way of the Wicked) because it explores an environment that is familiar to gamers, and yet holds many new interesting, unfamiliar elements as well.

Writing is absolutely top notch, not wasting a single sentence and written with Gary's usual flair for the dramatic, mysterious, and often humorous. FireMountainGames Adventure Paths are always better than Paizo's Adventure Paths because there is only 1 writer for all six books, so you get to see a (great) writer's holistic vision fulfilled, instead of reading through 6 different writers having their personal take on the same adventure - often lending Paizo Adventure Paths a schizophrenic feel.

Illustrations are gorgeous and really make this world, the underground cave system called the Azathyr, come alive and eat your adventurers. The maps are so beautiful, that I had to sit down and think why they really stand out from other products: the answer is asymmetry, unlike most adventures the maps here are of caves and strange underground structures which don't conform to the usual grid, yet the grid is present for utility nonetheless. An outstanding achievement by the artist, Michael Clarke. The only issue I have with the illustrations is that there is just not enough of them, specifically monster portraits. There are a lot of strange monsters found in the Fungle Jungle which don't have illustrations yet. Thankfully, the key figures are all drawn with a pen which feels like a fusion of old-school and new style of adventure artwork.

This Adventure Path is a Sandbox, meaning that it can be played out of order, especially the Middle Act. However, it does not mean this adventure is not structured. The First Act helps to set up the adventurers, the Middle Act really lets them explore the frontier environment, while the Third and final Act delivers a satisfying conclusion after working long and hard to reach the principal villain of this book.

I have to commend FireMountainGames for fully coming through on their promise to make this Adventure Path playable by two entirely different parties: good-aligned Explorers and evil-aligned Overlords. The difference isn't just a redressing, great effort has been put into place to make sure each party has its own unique experience: they start in different parts of the Azathyr, exploring all the same locations but often in different order compared to each other, each location might have slightly differing contents for each party, and often Overlords have the option of recruiting a lot of the minor villains they meet, while the Explorers have more opportunities to save some NPCs who are in peril by said minor villains. My only issue with the dual-campaign nature of this book is that while the Explorer campaign is written out clearly in order from cover to cover, the Overlord campaign is not as clearly described and often written out of order necessitating a lot of page flipping. In addition, and perhaps as a consequence of the above, the Overlord campaign is not as well written (even though it is more fun to play) leaving a lot of things open to GM interpretation to fill in gaps.

Overall, an amazing book, with an amazing value, filled with two amazing adventures, for an amazing price. A breath of fresh air in the stale cavern of adventure writing. And there are 5 more books on the way, starting with Book II which will introduce Kingdom Building elements, can't wait!

Hello all. I am a backer for Throne of Night and ,like many, I received my PDF copy this last weekend. I spent the last week reading through it and going over it and making sure that if I needed to run it on short notice that I would be ready.

It is definitely an ambitious undertaking on the part of Fire Mountain Games and I applaud their efforts for even attempting it. The trick is that Throne of Night may, in fact, be a little too ambitious.

The first module (and the rest as well) support two storylines. That of despotic drow "Overlords" and brave dwarven "Explorers". The story progresses differently for each, and care is given to make sure the experiences of each party are varied. Each encounter area is written with both storylines in mind. This includes different reactions and motivations from various NPC's and even extends to differing treasure for each group to find at each keyed area. Naturally, this had the effect of approximately doubling the word count for each encounter area. The end result is that, while the module has forty more pages of adventure content than the comparable Kingmaker module "Stolen Lands", It actually has the same number of encounter areas in it. The dual-storied nature of the AP took it's toll in terms of that doubled word count per encounter that I mentioned earlier. But, to be fair, this module has more replay value than most that I have read. Still, one must wonder, how much better this adventure might have been had the author not doubled his word count per encounter in favor of pursuing a single storyline. Of course this would also have had the effect of narrowing the target audience of this AP, so it is a give and take series of choices that I do not at all envy the author for having to make. They must have been difficult ones.

The production quality of the PDF is quite high, with full color pages throughout accompanied by wonderful original artwork. The PDF comes with a printer friendly companion PDF and a nineteen page Players Guide. My only unfavorable observation of the layout is the dark page backgrounds tend to obscure the (also) dark text making the PDF difficult to read for those with less than perfect vision. Again, to be fair, the printer friendly PDF is easily read (as it lacks the dark background)and is just as lavishly illustrated throughout.

In the back of the PDF the author uses several pages to supply potential GM's with troubleshooting tips for each of the AP's storylines. Although, for some reason, the "Overlord" storyline receives the lions share of attention in this troubleshooting area. Perhaps this is due to the inherent difficulties associated with running an evil party. Additionally, each storyline, both Dwarven and Drow, receives a set of optional campaign rules and traits designed to help the players create varied and capable all-dwarven and all-drow parties. Once again though, the author pays the price in terms of word count. Each race gets a few goodies and tips, but has to split the spotlight and page count of this section with the other storylines goodies and tips.

There was one thing that I had hoped to see in the module that was not there. There are some references to the use of the Kingdom Building rules and accommodations were made for their application to the AP in this module, but the impact of these areas was promised by the author to be explored in future modules and were not present in this one. Once again the afore mentioned limited word count exacts its toll upon the AP.

Throne of Night: Dark Frontier appears to be entertaining and fairly well written with a good replay value, but its ambitious scope provides widely disparate story opportunities for each group. It could be argued that there is two times the story within the covers, but I personally found the Explorer storyline to be unrewarding as it sets the players upon a quest and then provides very little in the way of furthering that quest in this module. Comparatively this module is a rewarding and thought provoking challenge for the Overlords as it provides their storyline with a good mix of conquest and intrigue. Essentials for an evil campaign.

Overall I would normally rate the module at three stars (two for the Dwarves and four for the drow, averaged), but due to its exceptional replay value, ambitious scope and the reasons below I am awarding only a single star. Is the Throne of Night project by Fire Mountain Games too ambitious for its own good? Only time (and a few more modules) will tell.

Just one huge glaring problem big enough to land a Boeing 757 on and store and maintenance it in. This company embraces apathy as a customer service policy. In addition to that they sell print copies of kickstarter stretch goals for months and months on end without ever bothering to supply their backers with those same stretch goals that they already paid for. Not that the backers have received any print copies of Throne of Night either, because they have not, despite the fact that they have been told several time to expect them "soon". First fourty months ago, then twenty-five months ago and most recently two Decembers ago. We have not heard a single word from Gary McBride in more than fourteen months. We were even promised a revised release schedule over sixteen months ago and even that has yet to materialize. No matter how good their work is, it is entirely overshadowed by their utter failures to keep their backers informed as well as provide them with the rewards that they were promised. I am awarding 1 star, and only because I cannot award zero stars. I will revise this if this company ever actually delivers on its promises to its backers.