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Pathfinder Tales: The Dagger of Trust

3.50/5 (based on 11 ratings)
Pathfinder Tales: The Dagger of Trust
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Fog of War

Gideon Gull leads a double life: one as a talented young bard at the Rhapsodic College, and the other as a student of the Shadow School, where Taldor's infamous Lion Blades are trained to be master spies. When a magical fog starts turning ordinary people into murderous mobs along the border between Taldor and Andoran, it's up to Gideon and a crew of his fellow performers to solve the mystery. But can a handful of entertainers really stop a brewing war?

From author Chris Willrich comes a new adventure of intrigue, espionage, and arcane mystery, set in the award-winning world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

400-page mass market paperback
ISBN–13: 978-1-60125-614-0
ePub ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-615-7

The Dagger of Trust is also available as a digital edition on the following sites:

The Dagger of Trust is sanctioned for use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. Its Chronicle sheet and additional rules are a free download (359 KB zip/PDF).

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3.50/5 (based on 11 ratings)

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Not a strong entry in the series...

2/5 —

A flawed book, and a weaker entry in the Pathfinder Tales series. Willrich's writing has its strengths, but they are often stymied by weak prose, a predictable narrative and the slightly silly milieu.

Gideon Gull is attending bard school, but it's also secretly a spy school, training up bards for intelligence work. When a magical fog starts driving peopl crazy, Gull reunites with his old flame and some fellow bards to solve the mystery.

The first thing that leapt out at me with this book was the prose, but unfortunately not in a positive way. In an effort to lend the book a suitably bardic tone, Willrich writes with a flowery overstated style, heavy on metaphors that break the flow and possess questionable efficacy. He also seems to struggle incorporating dialogue with action; the book veers wildly between the two at times, and the dialogue was quite... odd in parts. At points, it flows very naturally, but at others it seemed stilted and forced. It felt almost performative - what someone *thinks* they would say, rather than what they would actually say.

It doesn't help that the book has somewhat of a stop-start plot, very episodic and also quite predictable. The druid sections work best but are featured only a little. The villain is immediately guessable and the conclusion foregone.

It's a shame as there are parts of the book that work, but they are sporadic and it's just too inconsistent. I don't know how much of this is down to the setting (the Harry Potter like bard/spy school really is a bit much, as is the vast and powerful array of spells that *students* have), but Willrich seems like a writer who needs to write a few more books to get up to scratch.

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Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Announced! Image is a mockup, and will change prior to publication.
Sovereign Court

Lion Blades!

My mind is still churning with ideas for a 'rogue Lion-blades who are loyal to the Princess Eutropia and see her as embodying a return to true Taldan glory' campaign. So this should be inspiration-tastic.
Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

Yes! For Taldor!

A magical fog is turning ordinary people into murderous mobs along the border between Taldor and Andoran? Sounds like Nidalian or Chelaxian TREACHERY TO ME!
Sczarni

Definitely excited! Thank you for continuing to bring in great writers with fresh ideas and intriguing characters, Paizo.
Senior Editor/Fiction Editor

For the record, this book is pretty much "What if you had a James Bond training center at a bardic college?"

If you like bards, this book is the one for you. And if you don't like bards, this might be the book that changes your mind!
Contributor

Bardic spies... Taldor and Andoran... Nice premise, and I'm intrigued.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber

Sounds interesting!
Dark Archive
Matthew Morris wrote:
Yes! For Taldor!

BOO! Why would anyone want to read a book about Taldorian dandies? No, we want more books set in Cheliax!

Asgetrion wrote:
Matthew Morris wrote:
Yes! For Taldor!
BOO! Why would anyone want to read a book about Taldorian dandies? No, we want more books set in Cheliax!

Bah.

Books about Taldor are perfectly fine. The real problem with this book is that it seems to focus on those foppish types in the Lion Guard, when everyone knows the real heroes of Taldor are in the Ulfen Guard!
Dark Archive
Kajehase wrote:
Asgetrion wrote:
Matthew Morris wrote:
Yes! For Taldor!
BOO! Why would anyone want to read a book about Taldorian dandies? No, we want more books set in Cheliax!

Bah.

Books about Taldor are perfectly fine. The real problem with this book is that it seems to focus on those foppish types in the Lion Guard, when everyone knows the real heroes of Taldor are in the Ulfen Guard!

Yeah, you're absolutely correct; Ulfen guards are, indeed, the real heroes of Taldor. However, that is not saying much in a country filled with dim-witted fops and dandies. Naturally, your Ulfen savages are no comparison to real soldiers and heroes, such as the proud Hellknights -- or pretty much any average Chelaxian soldier. ;P

Webstore Gninja Minion

Product image updated.

This book's listing on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Pathfinder-Tales-The-Dagger-Trust/dp/1601256140/ref= sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389632476&sr=8-1&keywords=dagger+of+trust) and Barnes & Noble (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pathfinder-tales-chris-willrich/1116090560 ?ean=9781601256140&itm=1&usri=9781601256140) both say it won't be released until July. Is that a mistake or is Paizo keeping it exclusive to their site for 6 months?
2 people marked this as a favorite.

Never trust Amazon release dates.
Liberty's Edge

Paizo uses the game store release day of Wednesday instead of the book store day of Tuesday. A lot of times this causes the Amazon system to assume it's not getting the book that week and it defaults to July as a placeholder date.
Managing Editor

Gah! Amazon release dates can change for the weirdest reasons... I'll have our sales team look into it. Thanks for letting us know!
Webstore Gninja Minion
2 people marked this as a favorite.
Kajehase wrote:
Never trust Amazon release dates.

This. Amazon frequently uses some arcane method (likely involving goats, live covers of "Dark Side of the Moon", and candles made from Sicilian beeswax) to determine their release dates.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

I'll try to write a review later.

Let me just say this is an excellent book for Taldan fans, as well as folks who want to know what it's like on the border.

I'm pretty sure not all the Andorans don't smell bad in the story too.

Also it helps to give flavor to bardic magic, something so needed. (Puppets casting sound burst anyone?)
Contributor

I'm about a third of the way through this one and it is FUN.

Possibly the most fun I've had reading a PF Tales book since King of Chaos (which is of course an unfair comparison since KoC had cameos from my own characters so that's like +10 bonus chortle points right there).

Anyway it's a great read and I can't wait to dive back into it once I get out of work tonight. :)
RPG Superstar 2009, Contributor
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Three-quarters of the way through this tale and I just discovered Chris Willrich used a character I introduced in Realm of the Fellnight Queen. She only has a brief appearance, but it's Viviana Albercroft, the priestess of Shelyn in Bellis. So, I know the feeling of those +10 bonus chortle points, Liane!
The Exchange

I am working through some fiction that was sitting on my shelf and finished this today, but I have a question, maybe someone can spoiler the answer for me

seems like i missed something:
the part about seeing her thoughts, don't trust her... I missed whose thoughts and why they shouldn't be trusted I think... anyone clue me in on what that part was? The mother maybe?

Thanks
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