Pathfinder Society Scenario #5-05: The Island of the Vibrant Dead

Played once, GMed once. Great hook, both groups got *very* invested in the investigation, and the dungeon crawl was reasonably challenging. However, it's worth warning that both of my groups also ran long - I had to cut out one of the encounters entirely, just so we could finish before closing time of our LGS! That's really my only problem with the scenario, that running it in the future will probably need me to block out 5 hours rather than 4.

First off, I did enjoy both playing and running this scenario. It has amazing flavor, but there are some challenges to overcome.

The pros
- The flavor is amazing. The whole presentation of the surroundings is highly evocative and feels like it dips strongly into the pirate and carribean themes
- The NPC's are cool, and their artwork is fantastic
- In advance you can surmise the general theme of the encounters that you're going to face, but they all still manage to surprise and to pack quite a punch
- That BBEG is a seriously mean and terrifying piece of work. Both Loved and hated it :D
- The metaplot storyline implications are interesting and cool

The cons
- As a player I still have to come to terms with the whole "not all undead are evil", and I know from playing that I'm not alone in this. I'm definitely not opposed to the concept, so I do not hold this against the scenario: As previously stated, I loved the flavor that was presented. The reason that I add this as a negative, is that the GM does not get any handhold or suggestion to help champions, clerics or even plain followers of a deity to work with this (Pharasma is a Core20 deity that has an edict to destroy undead, even in the Remaster). A sidebar with a few suggestions would have helped
- The whole investigation and dungeon crawling felt too obvious, and it does not really support very obvious player actions such as wanting to interview the NPC's, or wanting to gather information about them. I undersdtand GM freedom allows a lot, but suggestions would have been welcome
- The scenario runs long (ran it in 6 hours while skipping one encounter, and without any downtime or 'slow play'). It felt to me like the dungeon crawling part alone could be a scenario.

All in all
Despite the challenges, I did enjoy the scenario and I wouldn't mind running it again. Finally, I'm curious where this is leading to.

So on the plus side

- Good Varied combat encounters finally! There were 3 very good fights in here and one which i had to cut for time and thats okay because it was wholly unnecessary anyway. Big props for finally doing good combat design work!

- Tone and setting - it feels like a fun romp because its supposed to be. It raises a LOT of setting related questions specifically on the nature of this island, ghouls, undeath in general. Its really really weird. Hopefully we eventually get answers because the mystery of the island was way more interrsting than the actual mystery the adventure was about and doesnr get resolved.

Downsides

- The mystery itself...isnt a mystery. You get told who the suspect is and then every single piece of evidence supports that theory. If a GM really tries and reaches for it you can loop in a red herring but its tough sledding.

- Pacing its ALL mystery and then ALL combat which just isnt good pacing. Something more varied (and there were opportunities for it in this story) would have helped

- The setting and tone are VERY light hearted regarding topics which are typicslly quite heavy. If a player brings a champion or a cleric of pharasma or Iomedae or just...is from Last wall, there is a lot of cognitive dissonance the scenario does NOTHING to smooth.

So good combats, good humor and memorable npcs but it can run long and the mystery itself is simply a dissatisfying conclusion

I recently had the opportunity to play this adventure, it was a fun table with other players I enjoyed a fair bit. Unfortunately, in this case, this is more despite the adventure than because of it.

In general, I agree with some of the points raised by the other reviews, if I could give points out of 10 or fractional points it would be 2.5 but since this one has been on my mind for more than a month we end up with a 2-star review, I really hope this is not a permanent choice of direction.

- Map: Reusing the final map used in 1-07 - and likely the more memorable ones once you go underground, is very disappointing. This makes it harder to first run the preceding adventure since putting players on the same map in short succession tends to be bad for their immersion. Similar to reusing the Museum flip mat so much, it tends to rip players out of their immersion if they find themselves on the same map that is supposed to represent vastly different locations (usually without any significant changes to the flip mat)

- Marcon: I don't dislike the artwork (which at the very least is a boon to someone running 1-07, since the normal ghoul artwork was a bit akward) and my GM spent quite some effort to run the NPC with an accent so deep that I struggle to understand it.

My main issue is... which is he here and not dead? I got the impression running 1-07 that there were essentially 2 outcomes, he dies close to the area where he was imprisoned, or he is brought back to the Grand Lodge so he can pass on the information and generally just die. The fact that he survived is more of a distraction to me, as I have assumed, that he died 4 years ago... so any sort of presence, no matter how well represented and written only really distracts from the story.

- Drendle Dreng: This character's inclusion into previous seasons' storylines was not received well when I ran it, because while PFS1 players had a lot of exposure to the NPC that was not necessarily going to be the case for new PFS1 players. Now we are learning
that apparently he had the time to set up a settlement for a very specific flavor of undead.
The connection to our somewhat overused Maze of the Open Road is... oddly convenient, and honestly might have been enough to justify and adventure here without the involvement of Drend and Marcon

- The Shark Captain: .... why does he look like some sort of humanoid shark mix, as others have mentioned, I would not have been shocked to see a character like that (maybe excluding the undead element) in something from Battlezoo, but it's very odd.
The character is immediately suspicious, depending on how people tend to roll, but it still ends up with a betrayal towards the end.

Having only played this I can't comment if/how players can resolve the issue of the shark early, but in my personal experience... NPCs betraying player characters is a really poisonous chalice, as it encourages players often called "murderhobos" to be more aggressive when it comes to NPCs.

- The town and setup for the island: It's weird, it's weird that apparently the Society was involved in setting it up, it's super weird, that the due to the weird reaction or the major and the IIRC first mate, they did not seem super surprised by the betrayal or really care all that much - but that might have been because the adventure ran super long.

- Arodenite dead: Having a large supply of human beef jerky to enable the town to persist a bit is (while everyone does not seem super keen on dealing with the inevitability of the corpses running out) is a weird plot point. The fact that those who eat any part of them get part of their memories.
I think I watched every episode of the show Izombie, but getting memories from eating someone's shin is peculiar.
Without looking in the scenario pdf and doing a lot of research, I am not sure if this is new lore or if it is a bit of established weird lore (not unlike the charge of the gorgon mentioned in 1-01 Abaslom Initiation which was introduced in the PF1 Absalom book).

- There really seems to be no one who actually wants to deal with their desire to eat corpses, which is essentially just kicking the can down the road. I think there is a significant difference between this colony and the skeletons the Pathfinder Society recruited/rescued in the Gravelands.
The Skeletons are "just" victims, and despite looking scary, do not pose a threat to anyone. The ghouls eat people, they only seem to eat them when they are dead, but historically ghouls tend to have few qualms about turning living people into dinner. When they are hungry, they are always going to be a threat to others until that is resolved. Pending unlucky seafarers fortunately the colony is pretty far from most population centers, but since the Agents of the Whispering Tyrant have found them..

The issues above tend to distract from the actual story of this adventure, the fact, that a village of corpse-eating undead is getting infiltrated by Agents of the Whispering Tyrant. That's not a bad story, but the setup for the village, and the connection to the Pathfinder Society via Marcon distract from that core narrative.

To be fair, I might have been more understanding, but our session took about 6 hours, and at that point, everyone was tired and in a hurry. If the encounter with the plants had been optional. that might already have helped the perception a bit.

If I end up prepping/running it, I will attempt to update this review with any additional context.