Posts
This
expansion anthology of 4 adventures to enhance Razor Coast clocks in at 162
pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 3 pages of SRD, 1 page ToC, 2
pages char-sheet, 1 page advertisement, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 152
pages of content, so let's take a look, shall we?
This being
a review of an adventure-anthology, the following contains SPOILERS. Potential
players should jump to the conclusion.
All right,
still here?
First of
the adventures would be Richard Pett's "Angry Waters" for 10th level
characters - which could be summed up in the words "Quest for
Eldorado," at least on a superficial level. The PCs are recruited by one
dazzling lady-captain, captain Mercy and her crew - they require the PC's
assistance, since they've found the legendary veiled isle - unfortunately, it's
within the territory of Armada. What's Armada, you ask? Well, if you've read
China Miéville's "The Scar", you'll have an idea - Uriah Tame, the
vile lord of the place, lords over a lawless city made of vessels tethered
together. Unfortunately, Tame and Mercy aren't exactly on speaking terms. Thus,
accompanying the crew on their voyage, the PCs are off to said place. Here, a
rather cool mechanic takes root -the PC's actions accrue Victory Points, which
serves as a means for the DM to determine the loyalty of Mercy and her crew
towards the PCs...and whether they'll be betrayed. Neat! It should also be
noted that the module offers quite an array of troubleshooting advice, should
the PCs betray Mercy at given stages in the module, making it rather easy to
run. But back to Armada - in order to secure passage, the PCs will have to
brave the decadent, chaotic revels on Armada in a cool mini-game of skill and,
potentially, combat.
Securing
passage, the PCs then finally reach the isle in question...which first brings
me to an issue. Armada...ought to be more detailed, Seriously, I love the
concept (air elementals as spies, btw.!) and its presence in the module, but at
the same time, I feel that Armada would change the power dynamics in Razor
Coast as a setting, whereas it here is mostly an afterthought to the plot of
this one module. So DMs using this in razor Coast probably ought to give some
thought to the change of dynamics Armada's existence poses to the power
dynamics of the coast. That complaint out of the way, the island is interesting
- displayed as a mini-hex-crawl (YEAH!), not only has another crew of pirates
been stranded there (and make neat adversaries/allies, depending on your PC's
actions!), the island is also home to degenerate orcs sired by the local
girallon populace, which makes for formidable guerilla foes. Worse, said intelligent primates are led by a
deadly girallon vampire, offering the true Pett-horror in terrible traps and
truly spooky environments. What about e.g. a corpse of a fallen pirate, stuck
on a tree and stuffed with rotten fruit, thus attracting swarms of hornets?
Yeah, shudder-worthy...in a good way.
Sooner or
later, the PCs will finally reach the city of gold - beyond the gold, deadly
guardians remain, as do sadistic traps (which I will not spoil) as well as some
old-schoolish puzzle-like hazards. Exploration of the city will sooner or later
put the PCs in a position, where they may wake an ancient evil and defeat
it...also dooming the island, which proceeds to sink, while all hell breaks
loose. As they are trying to escape with as much gold as possible, the PCs will
reap what they have sown throughout the module and potentially have final
chances to out-gambit their opposition. A rather uncommon module that shows
well that Richard Pett's talent is not limited to dark adventures - he can
obviously craft old-school explorations just as well!
The second
module, would be Gary McBride's "Black Spot" - in which the PCs are
once again hired for a mission, this time by one captain Riggs, who wants them
to help him salvage the grounded wreck of the Flying Fortune, which is stranded
on a tooth-like mountain in the middle of the sea. Once again, the journey
provides ample opportunities for bonding with the crew. As soon as the PCs
reach the iconic locale, though, a completely different tone begins - exploring
the Flying Fortune proves to be one of the finest examples of mood-setting I've
seen in any mystery/horror module - the slowly creeping suspicions rising,
inquisitive PCs may soon deduce that something's not right with captain Riggs.
Indeed, he was the captain of the Flying Fortune and as clues accumulate, the
PCs may actually find out that he's possessed by a weird, parasitic black
leech. Taking the captain prisoner, killing or saving him or falling prey to
his wiles, the PCs find themselves in a nightmare most uncommon: Riggs ran
afoul of the wiles of the Engineer - the vanguard of a planned neh-thalggu
invasion, whose ship is hidden in the depths, just missing a few brains to
launch true otherworldly death on the Razor Coast. In order to stop the
aberration's plan, the PCs will have to brave the vastly iconic and superb ship
and its dread inhabitants:
From
strange undead-like creatures to jade butterflies used for scrying (which are
also rather deadly!) up to a heart-pounding race to escape the self-destruct of
the ship upon the defeat of the dread engineer, this mystery/horror-module
makes for a superb offering - even in Gary McBride's great oeuvre, this one
stands out as one superb example of adventure-crafting, including the extensive
notes on possible aftermaths. Glorious indeed and both as stand-alone and as
part of Razor Coast, a great module!
The third
module, intended for 11th-12th level, would be Owen K.C. Stephens' "Jungle
Fever" - yes, grandmaster crunch actually took up the pen for an adventure
- but how does it fare and what's it about? It starts with a simple, yet
uncommon hook - the PCs are hired by the mistress of a brothel, which has suffered
from a curse/returning disease that is, of course, bad for business. But, and
that is no hyperbole - your players won't see where this module is going with
that angle. Soooo...players, seriously, skip ahead... All right. What happens
if isolated Tulita become desperate? They, in this case, turned to a dragon
turtle as a false deity, cannibalism and worse....and no one would care.
Problem is, their island harbors a special plant which amplifies the power of
the dragonsmoke-drug. A Tulita survivor seeking help stumbled across a truly
vile captain with this drug and she promptly set out to erect her own, no less
vile and despicable colonial nightmare on the island, enslaving everyone,
poisoning the dragon turtle and killing the spiritual leader of the tribe in a
most gruesome manner. Now her super-drug didn't catch universally due to
limited supplies and the wanton cruelty of her men - and now, only one of her
former crew remains, for the wench has reaped what she's sown - the dread
cannibalistic shaman turned the tables upon his vanquishers upon returning from
the dead, making terrible disease-creature-incubators of the living and turning
the island into full-blown nightmare territory.
In order to stop the disease and its undead carriers, the PCs have to find
the island, navigate its treacherous reefs and end the various despicable
existences on the island as well as the false turtle-totem and its degenerate
offspring -preferably including all the
dread dragonsmoke enhancing flowers and before Pele smashes the island for the
atrocities there. Seriously...wow. If I hadn't known better, I would have
assumed one of the masters of dark horror here - Owen K.C. Stephens delivers in
spades here, with a module that encapsulates all the terrors of colonialism without
falling into the "tulita are good"-glorification some parts of Razor
Coast fall prey to. This module is dark, iconic, action-packed and full of
great, unique creatures. If you've asked yourself why Paizo got Owen for their
module-series - here's a superb reason. I've always said that I'd enjoy it if
Owen wrote more fluff - this one is an excellent example for that stance.
Impressive indeed!
The final
module, by Tom Knauss, would then be "Sinful Whisper" for 5th level
characters - but can it stand up to its predecessors? The PCs are hired for a
task they're bound to hate rather soonish - escort a noble scion, a pampered
(but capable!), arrogant elven woman to a taboo island where her former vessel
was attacked, her fellow noble scions taken by bestial men. The thing is - the
island isn't taboo for nothing - chocked in hallucination-inducing,
paranoia-enhancing spores, populated by degenerate subhuman creatures, the trip
to the island not only will lead them all into dire danger, but also on a
journey into the heart of the surprisingly dynamic elven maid - who may be
turned towards good or evil, all by the PC's actions - if they manage to
survive the truly dastardly creatures and not lose their sanity to the plants
of the place, the vile practices there or the ancient evil slumbering beneath
the island's soil, waiting patiently for its time to return to truly vile
glory... This module is psychological horror paired with some truly disturbing
imagery and on par with the best and most disturbing ones I've read for PFRPG -
a good indicator that Tom Knauss should try his hand at these types of modules
more often!
Conclusion:
Editing and
formatting are very good, I didn't notice an undue amount of glitches. Layout
adheres to Razor Coast's two-column full color standard and the pdf comes with
quite a few iconic, awesome original pieces of full-color artwork. The pdf
comes with one bookmark per adventure, which makes navigating rather hard and
in the pdf, at least the cover is a bit blurry - something absent from my hardcover
copy. The maps in full color are great, though I wished they had
player-friendly versions included in the map folio.
4 modules
by masters of their craft - and I don't use that lightly - and all 4 are
killer. Seriously, all 4 of the modules in this book greatly enhance not only a
Razor Coast campaign, but can easily stand alone. In fact, at least "Angry
Waters" probably works slightly better as a stand-alone, with Armada
otherwise changing the political landscape of the coast a bit too much for my
tastes. The other 3 are plug-and play in the truest form, with the last one
offering actually a way into Port Shaw's elite sans rubbing shoulders with the
despicable masters of the place and thus making for an all but required
addition for particularly virtuous groups. Now let me say this again, loud and
clear - each module herein is killer. Each one, 5 star + seal of approval
material. However, the scarce bookmarks and lack of player-friendly maps make
for somewhat significant detriments. Usually, I'd rate this down a whole star
for these issues...but the modules don't deserve that. They're too good, even
providing, in multiple instances, vistas that help make the Tulita less
annoying one-dimensional good guys. As such, I think they should be considered required
for Razor Coast. If I may offer a piece of advice for DMs: Don't fall back
quite as often on the "island-sinks"-gimmick as implied here; a given
campaign should probably one employ this plot-device once and I'd suggest
"Angry Waters" as the best candidate. Owen K.C. Stephens' module
doesn't require the sinking and actually poses an interesting conundrum if the
island remains...
But I'm
rambling. Long story short - too good to be rated down, in spite of some
comfort-detriments - 5 stars + seal of approval.
If you rather roll old-school, here the link for the S&W-version here on OBS and here on d20pfsrd.com's shop!
Endzeitgeist
out.
No comments:
Post a Comment