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One of the unfortunate losses with the new website is that product reviews didn't carry over. As I've written 600+ reviews for Paizo products, I don't want all of that work to be lost, so I thought I'll gradually post them here, starting with my reviews of Pathfinder Society (first edition) scenarios in order. (I've tried reposting the reviews in the new web store, but it's very hit or miss if they "stick").
All of my reviews can also be found on my blog here.
NO SPOILERS
A couple of nights ago, I had the chance to direct my first Pathfinder Society scenario. I just picked the very first one listed for "Season 0", which was named Silent Tide, and ran it for Level 1 Iconics. The adventure takes place in the island metropolis Absalom, and involves the PCs on an adventure to save the city from disaster. It has some very creative set-piece encounters and a fairly interesting backstory, even if doesn't all hang together perfectly. The story does ensure that a good pace is kept and the momentum will surely keep any players from getting bored. As a GM, there were some confusing elements to prepare, but on the whole I was satisfied.
SPOILERS!
Premise: Eight-hundred years ago, a Taldoran invasion fleet lay anchored off the coast ready to invade Absalom in an operation code-named "Silent Tide." The fleet was waiting for a group of infiltrators and saboteurs known as Black Echelon to weaken the city's defenses and then transmit a special code using coloured lanterns. But the Black Echelon operatives were discovered, their plans foiled, and the invasion fleet taken by surprise and sunk. What no one in Absalom knew at the time, however, is that everyone involved in the planned attack had sworn an oath lost to time: a Binding Word, that ensured that neither time nor death would keep them from carrying out their goal. Now, a military historian named Yargos has uncovered an ancient codebook from the Silent Tide operation and, on a lark, sent off the signals to begin the operation. This triggered Black Echelon to rise from the dead as skeletal abominations to begin to carry out their ancient plans. Yargos realized his mistake, but before he could transmit the abort code to stop the plan, the codebook was stolen by a would-be crimelord named Nessian who plans to use it to blackmail the city's leaders.
Encounter # 1: The PCs are sent by a Pathfinder Venture-Captain to get the codebook from Yargos so that the Society can add it to its historical archives. There's a *long* text block to read to the players to begin the scenario, which is quite old-fashioned and could test the patience of some. On the positive side, once the text block is done, the PCs are right at an encounter. The PCs find out that Yargos and three of his friends (all shackled together) have been kidnapped by crimelord Nessian's henchmen (the War Hounders) AND are about to be pushed over the edge of a cliff to drown into the waters below! This was a great encounter to start the scenario, as it adds an exciting element to an otherwise unremarkable battle against thugs: the PCs have to rescued the prisoners (dangling from the edge of the cliff) before they fall in and drown. This requires some urgent action and may result in some major risk-taking (and the GM should prep the drowning/swimming rules). Unlike all of the other encounters, there was no map for this encounter, but it was simple enough to improvise so I don't find fault with that. A potential flaw in the encounter, which some people have noted in the forums, is that there is absolutely no contingency sidebar for the GM if Yargos actually dies. This didn't happen when I ran it, and it's probably not really likely (it would take 20 rounds for Yargos to die after falling in the water), but if it does a GM would have to think quickly or the entire scenario would be derailed. Perhaps a bigger issue is that Yargos, once rescued, is supposed to explain to the PCs everything in the backstory and then tell the PCs that to find Nessian they should visit an information broker named Grandmaster Torch. But if the PCs capture and interrogate one of the War Hounders (using Intimidate, Charm Person, etc.), it would make sense for the prisoner to tell the PCs exactly where Nessian's base is, which would mean the PCs would skip the information broker encounter. This happened in my game--it wasn't a huge issue, but should be noted.
Encounter # 2: On the way to Grandmaster Torch, the PCs notice signal lights flashing and Yargos realizes that's a code for Black Echelon to try to poison Absalom's granary. This encounter sees the PCs fighting several Black Echelon operatives inside the granary, and there's a couple of good elements here. First, the granary is given some interesting terrain features: grain is spilled in random spots which makes movement more difficult than just charging straight ahead, and there are hatches in the ceiling which can (if the right check is made) dump grain on a creature to cause damage and immobilize them. Second, the Black Echelon operatives themselves are far more interesting and flavourful than simple skeletons: they have the ability to summon a fog-like cloud around them, and every square adjacent to one is affected by total silence. These features made what would have been a bland encounter against undead into something that kept my experienced players off-balance and alert. I also liked that one of the Faction missions was to recover a vial of the poison, which could create some good role-playing opportunities.
Encounter # 3: The third encounter is the one where the PCs are to visit the information broker. Grandmaster Torch is willing to divulge Nessian's whereabouts if the PCs can open three out of the five treasure chests he hasn't been able to crack. Although the PCs in my session skipped this encounter, I really liked the idea of it as it gave the scenario the classic element of puzzles and riddles to engage the less-combat focussed players. Requiring only 3 of the 5 to be solved meant that getting stuck on a single one wouldn't ruin everyone's fun. Someone like Grandmaster Torch would also make a good recurring NPC for games set in Absalom.
Encounter # 4: On the way to Nessian's hideout, the PCs see, yet again, signal lights that are recognized by Yargos. Yargos explains that these lights mean that Black Echelon is about to attack the Metro-Church (a long-standing cathedral of Abadar) and try to interrupt the morning Oathday song. The sudden stoppage to the song, which has been played every Oathday morning for centuries, is the final signal for the invasion fleet to attack. This is the most memorable encounter of the scenario, as inside the Metro-Church is a *massive* organ: each key is as big as a human being laying down, and the way that music is played is to jump from key to key. The Black Echelon operatives have killed most of the dancing priest-musicians, and have used their Silence auras to keep any sound from emanating from the organ's pipes. I will admit that the whole premise of the organ struck me as a bit silly, but it led to an encounter I can safely say your players haven't had before! The encounter tests not just the PCs combat ability, but also their jumping and performance skills. This encounter does take some extra prep by the GM and some extra explanation for the players on what's going on.
Encounter # 5: The finale for the scenario sees the PCs approaching Nessian's hideout, "The Pyramid of the Dog." The concept of this structure is that three old siege towers have collapsed inwards to rest on a fourth, upright siege tower. A map of the encounter is provided, but it still took me a while to try to figure out how it was supposed to translate into three-dimensional space when it comes to climbing, cover, etc. An artist's rendering would have been extremely helpful here. Anyway, apart from the odd structure, this is a fairly run-of-the-mill encounter against Nessian, some of his henchmen, and a very mean dog. In his tower, the PCs find the codebook so that Yargos can send the abort code and stop Silent Tide.
So there are some problems with the scenario from a GM's perspective: it's a harder scenario to just plop down and run because some of the encounters are hard to conceptualize without a lot of planning. In addition, there are places where the backstory doesn't really hold together well (discussed in the forums); however, the momentum of the scenario is such that I imagine very few players will notice and question any inconsistencies. GMs new to the Season Zero scenarios should note that these are written for D&D 3.5, which means some minor adjustments need to be made ahead of time for NPCs in terms of CMB, CMD, and some skill names.
Overall, however, there's an interesting-enough story, some quite memorable encounters and enemies, and a strong mix of combat, role-play and puzzle-solving to make this a good (even though not great) adventure.
NO SPOILERS
The Hydra's Fang Incident was the second of the very first batch of Pathfinder Society "Season 0" scenarios to debut at GenCon '08. I was going to say that it hasn't aged well, but really the problems with the scenario aren't due to evolutions in Pathfinder or scenario-design generally: the flaws in it must have been as visible then as they are now. First, the overall plot and backstory just aren't very creative or interesting. Second, it's incredibly linear--every encounter has to be hit in order and there's no way to bypass any of them. Third, the encounter design is pedestrian and (apart from the next point) forgettable. Fourth, the encounters (at least in the low tier version) basically consist of two types: almost trivially easy ones and possible/probable (depending on the level/optimization of the PCs) TPK generators. I don't want to make it sound like an absolute disaster--it is playable. But given the (literally) hundreds of Pathfinder Society scenarios available, this one can be safely avoided unless, like me, you're trying to work through them in publication order. My review is based on running the scenario this past weekend as a home game for four Level 1 Iconics (one of them optimized, the other three stock).
SPOILERS
The premise is a relatively straightforward one. A young, spoiled Chelaxian noble named Darsielle Du Moire has turned from privateering to true piracy, rampaging up and down the Andoren coast burning ships and towns alike. His reign of terror has nearly led Andoran and Cheliax to war, but the countries have negotiated a temporary truce on the condition that the latter solve the "Du Moire problem" quickly. Du Moire's ship, The Hydra's Fang, has found refuge in one of the few ports open to it: the smuggler's city of Diobel on the Isle of Kortos. The Pathfinder Society is interested in Du Moire not for reasons of justice or avoiding war, but because he's stolen (from a slain sage) a quartet of tablets dating to the days of Old Azlant. The PCs are charged with recovering the tablets, though some of the Faction missions want Du Moire taken care of as well.
The PCs receive their missing briefing from Osprey in a ramshackle tavern on the docks of Diobel. The scenario does a good job of describing the tavern and the longshoremen inside, and an enterprising GM should be able to get some good role-playing out of the PCs before Osprey reveals himself. The scenario has sidebars on Diobel itself and the organization that runs it, the Kortos Consortium. I'd suggest asking for relevant Knowledge checks in order to determine how much the PCs know about the city and the Consortium. In order to achieve their goals, the PCs must overcome five encounters.
Encounter # 1: The PCs are ambushed at the warehouse of a merchant that they think Du Moire might have been in contact with. Two of Du Moire's thugs and a wizard in his employ are looting the place when the PCs arrive (as Du Moire has already killed the merchant and left). When they hear noise, the wizard magically disguises herself as a teenage girl sobbing her over "father's" body while the two thugs conceal themselves in the shadows to get the drop on the PCs. It's a reasonably clever idea, but the way the encounter is set up the ambush doesn't really accomplish much in game terms: the thugs fire once the PCs move into the room and after that's done, any advantage from the disguised wizard is lost. This encounter would have been better as an attempt by the disguised wizard to mislead the PCs (calling for role-playing and Sense Motive checks) while her thugs stayed hidden in the next room in case the deception failed. As it was, the PCs in the group I ran it for made short work of the villains (though, to be fair, more damage was inflicted on them than I expected). Now's a good time to remind GMs that the Season 0 scenarios are D&D 3.5, not Pathfinder, so updating is necessary in terms of things like CMB, CMD, and wizard class abilities (with the last one being particularly relevant). An easy Perception check after the fight shows the PCs a trap door that Du Moire presumably fled through.
Encounter # 2: Directly below the warehouse is a part of Diobel's Underdocks. The idea of the Underdocks is that they're, quite literally, a set of docks underneath the city's main docks. Clothed in shadows, they allow for smuggling in and out of the city. As several reviewers have noted, it's hard to conceptually wrap one's head around the layout of Diobel--there's not just the Underdocks to imagine, but there's an "inner harbor maze", locks, and an outer harbor. This is one of those times where an artist's rendering of what the city looks like, from 3/4 perspective, would do wonders for helping a GM. Anyway, a trail of footprints in the muck lead the PCs to a pier where a couple of rowboats are tied up (though a third is obviously gone) and two Enforcers from the Kortos Consortium are on duty. The Enforcers have strict orders not to let anyone through unless they have a "Harbormaster's Pass," which the PCs don't have. Apart from a sizable bribe (100 gp at the low tier), the only real way through this encounter is violence. Depending on alignment and class, PCs could legitimately bristle at this, as the Enforcers are the lawful authority of Diobel's government, and their actions (stopping trespassers from stealing boats) is also lawful. My PCs handled it adroitly at first (casting sleep) on the Enforcers, and then completely bungled the matter by murdering them! Anyway, inside the Enforcers' bunker are the items the PCs need to unlock the rowboats and determine what mooring the Hydra's Fang is tied up at.
Encounter # 3: There's a description of what the inner harbor maze is like, but (oddly) the PCs don't have to do anything to successfully navigate it before finding themselves in open water in the harbor. Once they're several hundred yards into the harbor, an encounter starts that is the most controversial of the scenario. Simply put, they're attacked from out of nowhere by two sahuagin (on a rather labored pretext) who try to flip the boat over with a simple DC 15 Strength check. Two sahuagin against 4-6 PCs might not seem like that big of a deal, but if that boat flips, any Level 1 PC wearing armor probably has a negative Swim modifier and is in big trouble of sinking and drowning. This encounter has caused TPKs for several groups. The scenario's writer, Tim Hitchcock, has said conflicting things about how deep the water is supposed to be in the harbor but, suffice it to say, if it's deep enough for the drafts of large-masted ships, it's deep enough for PCs to drown in. This didn't happen to be a problem when I ran it because the sahuagin failed their Strength checks and were promptly dispatched by the PCs. As a general rule, I think it's great when scenarios make use of skills that are often neglected by PCs, like Swim, but this encounter is a particularly lethal way to do it!
Encounter # 4: The PCs have to board The Hydra's Fang while under fire from two of Du Moire's men. Du Moire himself is on board as well, though the scenario has him make a run for it if seriously hurt. One of the hilarious things about this scenario is that Du Moire, "scourge of the Andoren and Chelaxian navies," has no particular feats, class abilities, or skills relevant to sailing or piracy, and, as far as we can tell, his "crew" consists of five people (the three from the first encounter and two more here) and a vessel that (apparently) has no weaponry. Anyway, I like how the scenario explains the different ways (and Climb DCs) that the ship can be boarded, though it would be helpful to have a better understanding of how tall the sides of the ship are above the water line. Perhaps the biggest problem with this encounter is that there's a tripwire trap running across the rear of the ship; a PC who sets it off is covered in chum and knocked into the water, wherein a shark or a sea cat arrives to attack in just 1d4 rounds. This trap is consistent across tiers, meaning that an unlucky Level 1 PC who sets off this trap could be all alone in the water fighting a shark. That's pretty close to certain death! Obviously, more thought needed to be given to the trap. In addition, Du Moire himself is simply not satisfying as the villain for the scenario--he'll be easily dispatched and has nothing memorable about him. I gave him a bad Monty Python French accent because, hey, why not? (oddly, he has an oil of invisibility in his equipment list but his tactics make no mention of it) The layout given for the ship is also pretty bad (there's no placement of ladders/stairs, and something (a cabin?) completely blocks access to the bow of the main deck. I was lucky enough to have the Ship flip-mat on hand, which helped immensely.
Encounter # 5: The PCs probably assume the scenario is pretty much over as they search the hold of the ship for the tablets. What they don't realize (because how could they?) is that they're in near-TPK territory again. Three lacedons are waiting behind the door the PCs have to open in order to recover the tablets. Lacedons (aquatic ghouls) are just like their land-bound cousins when it comes to "much higher than CR would indicate" lethality. Each one gets three attacks a round, and any hit requires a saving throw to avoid paralysis. Paralysis then results in a coup de grace unless a GM is being particularly merciful. Ghouls can be real threats even to mid-level parties, but throwing three of them up against a Level 1 group is a recipe for disaster and frankly unfair. When I ran it, three of the players essentially metagamed (as they failed their in-character Knowledge checks to know what the lacedons were) and retreated, while the fourth player (playing a tabletop RPG for the first time ever) was unceremoniously left behind and promptly murdered. Even the three retreating PCs barely survived, as two of them were paralyzed and the third was lucky to kill the last lacedon before succumbing herself. And to think the author originally wanted to include *four* lacedons in the encounter! I wouldn't inflict this encounter on your players unless they really like you!
One thing I should note is that the Cheliax Faction mission requires Du Moire be killed and his body "disappeared." This can create major role-playing and potential PvP issues, since the scenario tells GMs that Du Moire will be keen to surrender. There was a major discussion of this problem in the forums, so just be aware.
In sum, this is a lethal, linear, RP-lite, forgettable scenario filled with minor errors and problems for GMs. I'd suggest giving it a pass unless you have nothing else to run.
NO SPOILERS
Murder on the Silken Caravan was one of the very first batch of scenarios released for Pathfinder Society. Although the title may evoke Agatha Christie's classic "Murder on the Orient Express", and there is a murder in this scenario, this is definitely not a "whodunnit" in the sense of expecting PCs to gather clues to figure out who the culprit is. Instead, it's a very straightforward series of encounters in which the culprit reveals themself quite dramatically. By their very nature, Pathfinder Society scenarios tend to be somewhat "railroady", but Murder on the Silken Caravan is worse than most. Encounter design is solid (though one is more dangerous than probably justifiable), but I'd primarily recommend this for players/GMs with a real interest in Qadira and desert-themed adventuring.
SPOILERS
The basic idea of the scenario is that a famous Pathfinder Venture-Captain named Targos has died, and the PCs are asked to escort the body across Qadira from the caravan city of Lopul to the major city of Katheer. Drama happens along the way of course, ranging from classic bandit attacks to diseased cultists to a (quite difficult!) battle against harpies at an ancient shrine. One of the members of the caravan turns up with a dagger in his back after a sandstorm, but there's no way to interview suspects or canvass the area for clues: the murderer is simply revealed at the beginning of the last encounter. If there had been a real mystery for the PCs to solve, this would be a much more interesting scenario. In any event, the scenario is divided into five acts (four of them with combat encounters).
In Act One, the PCs arrive in the caravan city of Lopul to collect Targos' body. They find a crowd of mourners around his home, and "local priests" ostensibly "preparing the body for transport." In fact, they're disguised cultists of Lamashtu planning to seize the body and desecrate it! The PCs should penetrate the ruse and engage in battle. As an added twists, the cultists are suffering from leprosy! This put some fear into some of my players, and I quite liked it. The entire scenario depends on the PCs recovering Targos' body, so even if the PCs fail to penetrate the ruse (and mine almost didn't!), the scenario is very forgiving about allowing them another chance later. One minor snag is that the players will understandably think this cult of Lamashtu is a major player in the scenario, and may try to interrogate prisoners. Very little info is provided on exactly what the cult planned, where their base is, why they hate Targos, etc. I had to do some fast-thinking when my players took this route.
In Act Two, the PCs meet the only caravan in the city that will be travelling the route they need to go. The caravan mistress is a woman named Jamila, while other NPCs include an aged Taldan knight named Gaspar Du Mer, his Qadiran business partner Mahmoud, a water trader from Osirion named Hokama, and Hokama's slave boy, Atmar. I'd strongly suggest that the GM find images roughly fitting the descriptions and taping the pictures to note cards with the NPCs' names--players will find such an aid extremely useful. Anyway, the task facing the PCs in this Act is to persuade Jamila to allow them to come with her in the caravan. The Diplomacy DCs to persuade Jamila are fairly high for low-level PCs, and there's a good chance they'll make the DCs even higher by failing a check by more than 5. But the PCs *have* to join the caravan for the rest of the scenario to proceed as intended (there's very vague guidance on what to do if they fail, as my group did, so again I had to do some quick thinking). The GM knows, although the PCs don't, that Jamila was secretly Targos' lover and that they arranged his death in order to lure out the parties responsible for raiding caravans along the Silken Way. All of the suspects are part of this caravan, and Jamila expects Pathfinders to show up with Targos' body.
In Act Three, the PCs are with the caravan when a huge sandstorm separates them from most of the other travellers. Goblin and hobgoblin bandits pounce. The sheer number of enemies (13 in Tier 1-2) makes this a reasonably challenging encounter and definitely gives every PC something to do. (GMs should note that although D&D 3.5 hobgoblins and Pathfinder RPG hobgoblins are same CR, the latter have a *lot* more hit points.) There's nothing fancy with the encounter, but that's okay. I do like how this Act and a couple of the later ones make some use of the environmental (heat) rules, since characters who take stuff like Endurance or put ranks in Survival will see a benefit. As the PCs continue travelling, they come across a body (Mahmoud) in the sand, with a dagger stuck in his back!
I have mixed feelings about Act Four. The premise is really cool: the PCs stumble upon an ancient shrine to Irori that takes the form of a huge figure carved into the side of a cliff, with its eyes serving as caves for a nest of harpies. The harpies lure the PCs (and the couple of NPCs still with them) to start climbing the cliff, and then swoop down to carry off the NPCs. The problem is that the DC to resist the song is quite high, and there's a fair chance that all or almost all of the PCs will fail and become entranced. In my group, only one PC succeeded on the save. The tactics of the harpies are a little bit confusing, but it's clear that they'll attack if (non-entranced) PCs start climbing the cliff toward their nest. Low-level PCs fighting while climbing against creatures with Flyby Attack is another recipe for disaster. One PC and the two NPCs were killed in the group I was running this for, and there are a lot of reports of TPKs in the forums. Adventuring is supposed to be dangerous, but this encounter is probably unfair (at least at the lower tier).
Act Five has the PCs catching up to the rest of the caravan just as the criminal mastermind and murderer Gaspar Du Mer reveals himself. Jamila, who is apparently a half-Janni(!), summons a genie to battle Gaspar's bandits, but the PCs have to take care of Gaspar and his bodyguards themselves. Gaspar's a straightforward fighter and a challenge in head-to-head combat. After he's defeated, Jamila explains what's been going on and the rest of the voyage to Katheer passes without incident.
There's a lot of little things to criticize about Murder on the Silken Caravan, including: 1) The geography of the Silken Caravan doesn't fit with existing maps of Qadira; 2) the timeline is quite fuzzy, making it hard to decide how many days/nights should pass for different portions of the trip; 3) the Janni/Genie stuff comes from out of nowhere and doesn't add anything; 4) the Chronicle sheet for Tier 1-2 provides an almost laughably-specific special item (a map of the Zho Mountains that provides a minor bonus to Survival and Tracking checks when in that area) and nothing else besides credits. More substantial issues include the aforementioned lack of contingency-planning (some "What if?" sidebars would have been fantastic) and the overall railroading in a scenario that, at first glance of the title, might have players thinking they've signed up for a mystery-themed adventure.
Overall, I'd suggest that this one should be pretty far down on the list of scenarios to run. It's playable and has a couple of interesting elements, but it also contains numerous shortcomings.
NO SPOILERS
I ran this at low tier for a mixed group of Level 1 and 2 PCs. It's not an overly-long scenario, which is advantageous for tight time-slots. The action scenes are fairly run-of-the-mill, and, although the initial premise of the scenario is interesting, there are some rough patches in backstory and plotting that make for a less than satisfying experience. I'd rate this one as average or even a notch below. It's playable, but certainly not a high priority.
SPOILERS
The scenario starts a briefing by Adril Hestram, in the Grand Lodge in Absalom. It seems that an old friend of Adril's, an Ulfen adventurer (and sometime Pathfinder) nicknamed Skelg the Ripper recently settled down in Absalom after an escapade in the north. The problem is that Adril has received a cryptic letter from his old friend, hinting that he's in some kind of terrible trouble, and that a magical artifact may be to blame. Adril promptly dispatches the Pathfinders to help Skelg and, if possible, recover the artifact for the Society.
It's a blazing hot summer's day in Absalom, which provides a nice counterpoint for what comes later in the scenario. Once the PCs arrive at Skelg's nouveau-riche mansion, they realize that two Ulfen "guards" are actually jailers! The warriors are wielding the good stuff (greataxes) that could drop an unfortunate Level 1 PC. In the game I ran, however, they never actually hit and were dispatched without too much difficulty. Still, it's a nice initial encounter that quickly clues the PCs in that something is very wrong.
Once inside the mansion, the PCs find Skelg on his bed in front of a roaring fire, literally freezing to death! There's a lot of backstory to convey, and I found it hard to do well. The short version is that Skelg raided the funerary ship of an Ulfen lord (set ablaze in "viking" fashion) to steal all the treasures it was laden with, and that, in the course of so doing, he set free the deceased's wife who was, according to northlander custom, to be burned (alive!) with the body of her husband. One of the objects Skelg recovered was a lantern called the Beacon of the North, a powerful magical artifact capable of opening portals (some fist-sized, others large enough to sail ships through) to the frozen north. The timeline gets a bit wonky here, but Skelg apparently decided to retire with his new riches to Absalom. However, he was pursued by the deceased Ulfen's son (Bengeirr), who raided Skelg's vaults and used the Beacon of the North on him before escaping with it and the treasure. The effect of the Beacon was that a small but permanent portal to the north opened up on Skelg's body. No spell or remedy has been able to reverse the condition, and Skelg is surely but slowly freezing to death. To this point, it's a fun and original problem. The problem, as we'll discuss more later, is that a lot of the little details don't make a whole heck of a lot of sense.
The PCs can track Bengeirr either by interrogating the thugs he left to keep Skelg prisoner, or by the usual Gather Information checks (some quick NPCs are provided to help flesh out the latter route). Bengeirr is hiding out in a dockside warehouse on a busy street, with a sentry posted out front. The little touch here that I really liked is that, because the street is so busy, the PCs can't just start hacking and slashing the sentry without the city guard being called out to arrest everyone. Instead, they need to resort to guile if they want to storm the warehouse without alerting either the sentry or the city guard. It gives the opportunity for things like distractions, bluffs, disguises, skulking about rooftops, etc., and a potential chance for Rogue PCs to shine.
Inside the warehouse are Bengeirr and two more of his Ulfen warriors. The map here is interesting and original, with a loft and a longship to provide some tactical choices. One of the ways the whole "Beacon of the North" concept was useful is putting some fear into PCs once they got hit by it and were told they were permanently under the effects of a condition that couldn't be reversed through normal means! The battle inside isn't really that hard, though it took a long time for my group because they hemmed and hawed for several rounds.
Assuming the PCs defeat Bengeirr and recover the lantern, they need to go back to Skelg's house and enter a portal in the basement. After reading the scenario a few times, I'm still a bit fuzzy on how this all worked, but, in any event, the portal leads to the funeary longship that is now almost completely encased in ice. The maps here are confusing and unclear, so I'd encourage GMs to go carefully through prepping this to make sure it all connects together. Anyway, after battling through some "frozen zombies" and a (potentially deadly) ghoul, the crux of the final encounter is negotiating with or fighting Natalya, the widow of the deceased Ulfen. The deal here, which I think is handled pretty well for one of the earlier and less sophisticated scenarios, is that Natalya wants three things: 1) Companionship (preferably with her liberator, Skelg); 2) The Beacon of the North; and 3) A return to Irrisen. PCs who take the diplomatic route can get her to cave on some of these demands, but there's also the real potential of a battle starting. The easy route is just to give her everything she wants (assuming the PCs can persuade Skelg), in which case she'll show the PCs how to use the lantern to open a new portal which closes all of the little portals (?) and thus saves Skelg (satisfying the primary success condition). However, the secondary success condition requires the PCs to return the lantern to the Pathfinder Society, so the easy way is the less rewarding way. I thought it was a nice challenge.
Probably the biggest issue with the scenario is what I adverted to earlier: there are several little plot holes and confusing bits about how things work and why people are doing what they're doing in the scenario. Sometimes these discrepancies go unnoticed by players, but this was one where the problems were noticeable and problematic. How many months, for example, has Natalya just been hanging out on that frozen ship without food or fuel for the braziers? If a portal opened by the lantern is effectively permanent, wouldn't that revolutionize trade between the north and (for example) Absalom? Why wouldn't the PCs just call the city watch to raid the warehouse when they have proof that robbers with stolen goods are present inside? Etc.
All in all, I would say the premise of the adventure is pretty cool, and there are some good bits (like getting past the sentry without violence and the negotiations with Natalya). However, the combat encounters tend to be rather forgettable and the confusing aspects of the plot make it an inessential scenario overall.