Pathfinder Society Playtest Scenario #1: The Rose Street Revenge

The Rose Street Revenge picks up where a past PFS Special leaves off. In the backstory, Absalom narrowly withstood an attack by an army of constructs and undead in what became known as the Fiendflesh Siege. As part of the defense effort, the city's slaves were offered their freedom in exchange for helping to defend the city. The gambit worked, obviously, since the City at the Center of the World is still around, but that doesn't mean there weren't any complications. Although the freed slaves were ecstatic, their former owners lost a great deal of invested wealth--and some of them want revenge. When a cleric of Milani named Wennel Ardonay helped one slave too many, a cabal of slave traders had him murdered. And this is where the story begins, because Ardonay has returned as an undead seething with anger from his unjust death. The problem is that he's targeting the only names still in his consciousness, a group of people who aren't the murderers but former slaves he helped!

The first Quest, "Snippets", has the PCs briefed by the ever-meticulous Ambrus Valsin. Valsin explains that a series of disappearances have set the city on edge, and that one of the missing is a recent recruit of the Society. Valsin suspects that the city's most prominent thieves' guild, the Bloody Barbers, may be involved. He sends the PCs out to find a local meeting house of the Bloody Barbers to knock some heads together and find out the truth. As their name implies, the Bloody Barbers really do work under the guise of a legitimate trade, and the PCs are given a variety of possible skill checks to use to try to find a lead. They'll have little trouble finding a barbership called The Smiling Cut, but questioning the barber on duty goes nowhere (in a nice twist, she's a jerk but not a member of the guild at all). The young shop sweep, however, seems willing to help the PCs--only he's in it to make a name for himself in the guild by leading the adventurers into an alleyway ambush! I liked that clever PCs can figure this out and launch a counter-ambush. The Quest does a nice job introducing skills and basic combat. Assuming the PCs are smart enough to keep one of the thieves alive (my group wasn't), they'll learn that the Bloody Barbers aren't responsible for the murders.

The second Quest, "Dragons", has the PCs venturing into the elaborate sewer network under Absalom. Valsin has arranged for them to meet with the largest kobold tribe there, the Sewer Dragons, to see if they've come across any bodies dumped down from above. The hook is kind of weak, but I'm willing to let it slide. The Sewer Dragons expect a quid pro quo, which is help from the PCs in ambushing a rival kobold tribe, the Dragon Sharks. A member of the Sewer Dragons leads the PCs through the sewers, narrating how they need to look out for various traps and hazards. This is cleverly done with in-character dialogue to reinforce an out-of-character mini-tutorial about Exploration Mode. It's a little like how video games often start with a guided tutorial to make sure players know what they're doing before sending them off into the world. The combat itself is nothing memorable, but again, the purpose here is just to learn and test out the system. One of the things the PCs will come across in the sewers is Wennel's journal, and from here they'll start to suspect what links the victims together.

The third Quest, "Puddles", does a really nice job with the atmosphere and setting. It's a rain-soaked day in the long-flooded area of Absalom called Puddles when the PCs arrive to talk to the local guards about the disappearances. There's a couple of good role-playing opportunities here. As an aside, I loved that one of the guards is an ex-War Hounder (a local gang with magical tattoos that appeared in the very first PFS scenario, The Silent Tide)! Anyway, clues lead the PCs to the crash pad of a freed slave in an abandoned house. The place is well-described as falling to pieces, and there are encounters against bats and a nasty acidic ooze. The body of the escaped slave can be found here, and several clues point to the work of an undead creature.

The last Quest, "Haven", has the PCs sent to investigate an abandoned tavern in an earthquake-ravaged part of the city. The tavern, the Sanguine Thorn, was used as a safe house for all of the freed slaves that have gone missing. In a clever setting for the big finish, the tavern has fallen into a muddy sinkhole. The PCs will get some more experience with terrain and hazard rules as they descend into it, ready to encounter the skeletal champion that used to be Wennel. Wennel has some weaknesses the PCs are supposed to be able to take advantage of as a result of completing the earlier Quests, but I didn't think these were organically integrated into the plot and felt rather forced. Still, the climax is satisfying (as is the surprise recovery of the missing Pathfinder who was the reason for the Society's involvement to begin with!).

The artwork and production design is solid, despite this being a free product. There's original artwork for the major NPCs and a handy full-colour map of Absalom with marked locations.

I really liked The Rose Street Revenge. The mystery and investigation aspects were done well, the encounter settings were interesting, and there was a good mix of role-playing and combat. Even if the play-test rules themselves were clunky at times, they didn't detract too much from what was otherwise an enjoyable scenario.