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Down the Verdant Path has a pretty cool backstory, though I have to admit I don't think I got any of it during actual gameplay (it's likely it was there and I just wasn't paying attention). The gist is that decades ago, a flamboyant First World gnome sorcerer named Azure was punished by one of the Eldest for trying to steal some of the plane's treasures. The punishment took the form of draining Azure of color and exiling him to Golarion, where he would presumably die from the Bleaching. However, Azure didn't give up, and instead quested to find a way back to the First World and finally (recently) discovered a portal from the Verduran Forest in northern Andoran. Azure can feel the palette bag (containing the colors stripped from him) just on the other side of the portal, but knows it's guarded by members of the Wild Hunt--a band of legendary fey hunters. So Azure has decided to wait, hoping that with a little luck a band of adventurers would come by and be willing to assist. And as a fey, Azure's luck is pretty good!

The PCs get involved when the Pathfinder Society hears reports of strange weather patterns coming from that area of the forest. Venture-Captain Brackett sends them via boat to the town of Bellis to meet a local (retired) agent, a gnome herbalist named Falbin. When they arrive, the PCs find Falbin arguing with a stately woman (secretly a janni) named Jamila. Both Falbin and Jamila are NPCs who appeared in previous PFS scenarios; I remember Jamila way back from # 0-3, Murder on the Silken Caravan! (and there are some good additional bits for PCs who have the relevant Chronicle sheets) Anyway, Falbin and Jamila plan to accompany the PCs to the site of the bizarre weather disturbances. On the way, the two speculate about what's causing it. Falbin thinks it's a problematic group of local druids, while Jamila thinks it's a planar rift. The fun part is that the PCs can wager on which theory they think is most likely (betting gold pieces against minor magical consumables), and gather clues (through skill checks) to support their side. It's a novel idea and good for some early role-playing.

Just two miles south of Bellis, the weather and landscape suddenly turn freezing cold and studded with junglelike growth. Soon after entering the unnatural area, the group encounters a father-and-son pair of giant intelligent frogs. This was a really fun encounter, as (assuming someone like Jamila casts speak with animals) the frogs have hilarious banter as the father tries to persuade the son that humans are a "healthy snack option". It's really cute, and the sort of slightly skewed theme of the First World in the scenario starts to become really apparent.

After another mile's travel through increasingly tropical conditions, the group arrive at an abandoned elven settlement called Deepstead. There, they meet the completely hue-less Azure and learn (through some really well-written dialogue) about what's going on. Jamila and Falbin plan to start working on a ritual to close the portal, while the PCs are tasked with entering and trying to bring back Azure's palette bag. To enter the portal, a PC has to give up something meaningful to them--my PC sacrificed her rolling pin. Once in the portal, a skill we don't see come up often in Pathfinder Society games becomes important: Swim! The PCs are instantly immersed in freezing water on the shores of a wintry forest, and the longer it takes them to get out of it, the more nonlethal damage they'll be taking (and the longer it'll take them to join the encounter that's about to start).

As the PCs get to shore, they'll be peppered with arrows from the first member of the Wild Hunt, a vanara ranger sitting on a tree branch about ten feet off the ground. This encounter was a good one, as traditional melee combat wasn't an option and I don't think any of us PCs had much in the way of ranged attacks.

The area of the First World the PCs find themselves in is called Whirlwood, and it features incredibly rapidly-changing seasons: from round to round! The seasons have different effects in combat, and were another memorable way of making it clear that the PCs were far from the Inner Sea. Soon the group will find an area of the Whirlwood called Heartgrove, where they can see a dozen or more bindle bags hanging high up on tree branches. One of them must be Azure's palette bag, but which? To make things harder, there's a nasty plant monster guarding the trees (that, at high subtier, release some hallucinogenic spores that really messed up our group). And then to make things worse, the other four members of the Wild Hunt arrive! It's all fun and games until it's a near TPK, and this encounter nearly got there. And in an ironic twist, anyone trying to run away from the Heartgrove simply enters it from another direction: it's a fey realm, after all! (there's a trick to getting out that the PCs might learn during the encounter) The good news is that the members of the Wild Hunt argue and bicker amongst themselves, and there's a fair chance they'll spend time fighting each other as well as the PCs. I imagine that with the changing seasons and multiple NPCs, this is a challenging encounter for the GM to run.

Assuming they survive the battle, the PCs can retrieve Azure's palette bag and return to the frozen lake to take the portal back to Golarion. They'll find their sacrificed item comes back to them, but with a randomly-rolled twist; for example, Jilla's rolling pin now cries like a baby when left alone! The epilogue features a meeting with Ashasar, leader of the new Concordance faction, who tries to recruit the PCs (as does Jamila).

I thought Down the Verdant Path was a blast. It definitely had a fey-themed flavour, which I imagine is a hard writing challenge. The encounters were maybe a touch more difficult than I would like, but I guess by Season 9 most PCs were pretty pumped-up combat wise. I definitely have some fun memories of the game, and Jilla's crying rolling pin won't ever let me forget it . . .

If you read the non-spoilerly section above, you probably put two and two together and realised the adventure was going to involve taking the new ship, the Sun Diver, into the new sun city, Noma. The premise for my campaign was that the PCs are a group of scientist/explorers sponsored by an academic consortium from Near Space, and have been sent on an expedition to investigate the Pact Worlds' sun. Here, that idea finally starts to pay off, and I found Chapter 3 the best part of the first half of the AP.

Part 1 ("Securing the Sun Diver") has Nib from the Deep Cultures Institute reveal that there just might be a way to actually get to the mysterious "Noma" whose coordinates deep inside the sun were discovered at the end of Chapter Two. Nib says a member of a rival organisation, the Corona Artifact Divers, has developed a prototype ship called the Sun Diver that can allegedly survive a journey into the sun and back. The PCs make a quick visit to the HQ of the Corona Artifact Divers and interact with a fun osharu NPC named Pahdric to learn more. It seems that the inventor of the ship, a woman named Lurian, has been spending most of her time at a casino called the Vestrani Gaming Complex in the nearby bubble-city of Verdeon.

When the PCs get to the casino, Lurian's location isn't obvious. The PCs need to track her down (which may take a few days), and when they do, they'll learn that she's deeply in debt to casino and that it's holding onto the Sun Diver until she can pay off her debts. The most straightforward way the PCs can help Lurian achieve this is to gamble, and gamble well! The casino is fully fleshed-out with a variety of games suitable for different skills (there's even something for the more athletic PCs to do), and there's enough staged incidents (an assassination attempt, potential recruitment in a heist, a performer who needs a PC as a last-minute fill in, etc.) that the sequence never devolves into simply rolling dice. I thought it was fantastic fun and very open-ended (the PCs can even try to break into the garage and just steal the Sun Diver), but I can see how some players think it goes on too long.

Part 2 ('Into the Fire') assumes the PCs have obtained the Sun Diver. I really like the concept of the vessel, and it provides a logical reason why the PCs are the centre of the story, which is something some adventures struggle with (here, there's only one ship, after all!). The ship has a sort of "yee-haw!" cowboy voice for its AI, which was a lot of fun to role-play. Anyway, into the sun! One of the things that's done well is that for every day of travel, the Sun Diver takes Hull Point damage that can't be repaired--so the players get more and more nervous as they see their ship slowly disintegrating before their eyes, knowing that the further they get into the sun, the longer the journey back out will be as well. I think it added a nice sense of foreboding (along with the fact that no one can come help if they run into trouble!).

The bulk of this part of the chapter is exploration of Noma. As I said in the non-spoilerly section above, I thought this was some good world-building. Some of the sectors need some fleshing out (and maybe the GM should add an encounter here or there to keep things exciting), but for the most part the adventure ran well as written. It's really good to have some genuine, curiosity-driven exploration in a game that can unfortunately sometimes devolve into "encounter-encounter-encounter-boss" type of gameplay.

Part 3 ('The Core') starts when the PCs reach The Core, the sector of the city that records the results of all the experiments going on in the other sectors. Here, the PCs will realise that, only some weeks before, another expedition landed and partially looted the place before leaving. However, that expedition (a scouting team from General Khaim's forces led by a commando salamander named Sulphrax) overlooked something: a horacalcum tablet. Assuming the PCs recognise its value, they've found a valuable key to another location even deeper in the sun (which leads into Chapter Four). But Sulphrax and his troops return to Noma for a second search, and a big firefight is inevitable. I would have preferred a different climax, as the timing is too coincidental and the PCs still don't really get any insight into what's going on behind the scenes.

And that's Sun Divers. Overall, I thought it was great. If you can keep your players' attention through the first two chapters of the AP, this is where it starts to get really good.

Having literally just finished running a multi-year Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign and running the Pathfinder Module Academy of Secrets for PFS, I was both jazzed and frustrated that Lord of Runes spends several opening chapters in Korvosa! Jazzed because I love the setting and it's fantastic to see NPCs like Vencarlo Orisini (he and Jeggare are old drinking buddies!) and locations like the Acadamae (Headmaster Toff Ornelos' niece is a major character) brought to life. I was frustrated because if I had known earlier, I good have incorporated some of the novel's great flavour into my running of the adventures! But that's just how the cookie crumbles. In addition to Korvosa, the novel features more of Varisia, such as Kaer Maga and the Cenotaph, and the plot (as the title might indicate) has to do with an ancient Thassilonian Runelord: in this case, Zuthra, the Runelord of Gluttony. Fans of Eando Kline should also read the novel, as he's a major character as well.

For me personally, it's a little weird to have finally read Lord of Runes. I remember seeing it in a bookstore very early in my immersion into Pathfinder (circa 2016) and buying it despite knowing it would be years before I read all the ones published before it. I think I'm in the last quarter or so of the existence of the Pathfinder Tales line. Bittersweet, but ever onwards!

Unlike modern specials, Race for the Runecarved Key doesn't have any mustering activities. It just starts with a main briefing once all the players are seated. The scenario takes place in and around Magnimar, as Venture-Captain Sheila Heidmarch explains that the Pathfinders have been assembled to help the Society obtain an intriguing artifact at a public auction. It seems that, while dredging stone in the harbor, laborers for the city's Golemworks discovered what looks like a giant key etched with ancient Thassilonian runes. The city has decided to auction it off, and Heidmarch believes that purchasing it would help the city accept the relatively-new Pathfinder lodge and, of course, potentially pave the way to some amazing discoveries. Heidmarch, however, doesn't intend to play fair at the auction. She wants the Pathfinders to find out everything they can about potential bidders and then undermine them so that the Society's bid is more likely to succeed--and she says she'll disavow knowledge of their activities if they get caught!

Act One takes place at a pre-auction gala hosted at the Cathedral of Abadar (which is running the auction). The PCs are charged with learning the identities of potential bidders, how serious they are about bidding, and what resources they have at their disposal. Through skill checks, PCs can try to peek at the guest ledger (with a limited real-time duration to look at it depending on how high the roll is!) and then scope out the crowd to see who the serious competitors might be. There's a lot of role-playing potential in this part of the scenario as the PCs interact with various NPCs, and the scenario gives the GM plenty to work with in terms of each NPC's motivations and personality. I wish there had been artwork for each of the major NPCs, as I find that always makes these "chat to five NPCs in quick succession" sections of an adventure run much more smoothly. (our group split up to talk to different NPCs simultaneously, which probably did not make life easy on the GM--especially with play-by-post) I liked that one of the NPCs, an agent of the Aspis Consortium, tries to insult the PCs and provoke them to violence so they get kicked out--I imagine that wouldn't be too hard for some characters. The scenario makes excellent use of setting lore by tying many of the NPCs to established Magnimar organisations and institutions. As an aside, one of the fun things that is supposed to happen in a live running of the special is the reveal of a giant prop key--I don't know how such a thing was made, but it's certainly a fun idea.

Act Two is one of the problem sections of the scenario. Having realised that the Aspis Consortium plans to bid, Heidmarch instructs the Pathfinders to effectively knock them out before the auction even starts by raiding a caravan that is transporting their funds into the city. In other words, the PCs are essentially asked to become highwaymen. The fact that this is not only illegal but likely to lead to the death of hired (and neutrally-aligned) mercenary caravan guards and potentially even Varisian wagon drivers makes it, to me, a clearly evil act. I know in later seasons that scenarios sometimes go too far in the *other* direction of making Pathfinders into "Golarion world police", but a better balance has to be struck. Maybe if it had been characterised as a non-lethal heist of clearly ill-gotten gold, the gist of the premise could have been maintained. Anyway, I had my character sit out this part of the scenario for alignment reasons.

Act Three gives the players a lot of options and takes up the bulk of the special. Each table is offered one of eight missions to complete to try to disrupt other potential bidders (and if they finish the mission with time left, they can go on to another one). For example, they might try to trick a superstitious bidder into thinking he's cursed so he runs away, impersonate debt collectors so another potential bidder turns over his money, blackmail an aristocrat with proof (or forgeries) of an illicit affair, etc. The missions are all designed well with plenty of flavour, and I especially like the range of skills that can be used and that player creativity is encouraged. There's still some moral issues with many of the missions, but at least the PCs are instructed by Heidmarch to "try not to kill anyone important".

Act Four is the auction itself. It has a fun competitive element, as each table will have accumulated a certain amount of "auction notes" depending on their performance, and the table that wins the auction receives special acclaim from the auctioneer (role-played by the Overseer GM). I imagine it's a moment with a lot of clapping and good-natured booing from the losing tables. (although not obvious to the players, the auction is rigged so that none of the NPC rivals can win.) Of course, things are never that easy for the Pathfinder Society, as the Runecarved Key is snatched by cultists of Lissala who crash into the cathedral! There's a short battle and then a Chase through the streets of Magnimar using the GameMastery Chase Cards deck. I know a lot of players don't like Chase scenes, but I always find them a nice change of pace from normal encounters and a way to make skill challenges exciting. Even once the key is recovered, however, the cultists don't give up that easy, as they summon waves of demons. Tables can "tap out" at anytime between waves, otherwise they keep fighting higher and higher CRs of demons until they die! (or the Overseer GM has to call time) I've never seen escalating waves like that used in a scenario before, and I wonder how many groups quickly got over their heads.

For the Conclusion, Heidmarch acknowledges the victory that comes with obtaining the key, but observes ominously that dark forces have surfaced in Varisia. I imagine this leads into the Season Four meta-plot. Back in the real world, the table that amassed the most "Key Points" (which have been secretly tracked during the entire session by table GMs) in each subtier gets a special Chronicle. There's really a lot in Race for the Runecarved Key that I think would make it a blast to play in-person that just can't be replicated online. Although it displays a skewed morality that makes certain PCs challenging to play within its framework, I still had a good time with it.

The first thing that’ll jump out to players in Lost at Bitter End is its setting: the Mana Wastes! In both the briefing and a special reminder that GMs are supposed to tell players, the Mana Wastes are extraordinarily dangerous because its largely a dead magic area. Dead magic zones hold such potential for interesting encounters (what does the wizard do when he can’t cast spells and how do PCs deal with the fact they can’t heal almost infinitely at-will with cheap wands?). Unfortunately, despite the multiple warnings, there’s only one encounter actually set in a dead magic zone, and even then its intermittent (magic has a 50% chance of working every round). My biggest critique of Pathfinder is that conventional encounter design in adventures helps to reify the “perfect build/one trick pony” problem. If there were more encounters at long range, or against dozens of foes, or where weapons have to be turned over at the door, or in wild magic zones, PCs would really have to stretch to meet different unpredictable eventualities. Ok, mini rant over.

The scenario starts with a briefing by Venture-Captain Adril Hestram. It’s one of those odd Season Zero briefings that’s technically a flashback. Hestram explains that a Pathfinder cleric of Nethys named Rijana has made a career of studying wild and dead magic sites (a clever concept for a Nethys-worshipping character). Most recently, Rijana has been in the Mana Wastes where she reported a potential discovery that could return magic to that blasted land. Hestram is so excited that he doesn’t want to wait for the cleric’s next report to reach him the old-fashioned way. Instead, he arranges for the PCs to teleport to her last known location so they can talk to her and get her journals for inclusion in the Pathfinder Chronicles. So far, so good.

Act One has the PCs arriving at the town formally known as Geb’s Rest (and colloquially as Bitter End), which is near the border of Geb and Nex. Only, once the PCs start looking around, they quickly realise that everyone’s gone! In classic Marie Celeste fashion, it seems everyone vanished in the middle of whatever routine activities they were doing. As the PCs explore, they’re ambushed by several juju zombies (and a bone devil at high subtier). After defeating the foes, they find Rijana’s body--dessicated and showing signs of unnatural death due to performing some sort of ritual. As an aside, I really like the map of Geb’s Rest.

Act Two has the PCs using a journal found on Rijana’s body to realise she had journeyed to an ancient stele (a type of metal monument) two days north of Geb’s Rest that she believed might be the key to returning magic to the area. The PCs naturally head there to investigate the mystery, but they’re attacked by a pair of hellcats (like hellhounds, but feline!) on the way. This is the only encounter that makes even limited use of dead magic zones in the Mana Wastes.

Act Three is where things really start to pick up. When they reach the stele, they find more journals from Rijana and learn of an incantation she translated from it. Because the PCs were specifically charged with finding four journals and have only found three, they can’t turn back. (though that would probably be more logical) Instead, they’re expected to read the incantation which transports them to a pocket dimension! What’s really going on is that, centuries ago, when Geb and Nex were at war, Geb created several pocket dimensions full of undead that could be unleashed by reading the incantation on the stele if the country were invaded. When Rijana intoned the incantation, she entered the pocket dimension (“Geb’s Accord”) and somehow drew all of the people’s of Geb’s Rest with her. A bone devil general wants to come back to the Material Plane, but Rijana failed to properly read the incantation that would do the job, and died instead. I’m a bit fuzzy on exactly the story and sequence of events here, but that’s the gist. Anyway, once the PCs appear in Geb’s Accord, they have to fight off some more juju zombies.

In Act Four, as the PCs are travelling from the site of the stele to the pocket dimension’s version of Geb’s Rest they come across a massive army of undead held in stasis. Some of the warriors and an ancient Gebbite battle cleric are awakening though. I liked that this encounter had eleven foes to fight at high subtier. (they were still a push-over for a modern Pathfinder party, but it made the battle a bit more interesting anyway)

Act Five has the PCs reach the mirror-Geb’s Rest and learning that the bone devil general (“Zepteffis”) has the townsfolk imprisoned and is using them to try to activate the stele. Another big battle lies in store before the Pathfinders can return home. Someone in the group better be trained in Knowledge (arcana) in order to activate the stele, or this whole adventure could get very tricky!

All in all, I liked Lost at Bitter End. I just wish that, for a high tier adventure, it could have taken better advantage of the setting and proven more of a challenge.

Arkanen is a moon of the gas giant Liavara, and is infamous for its bizarre orbit that causes atmospheric bleed and intense electrical storms & magnetic disruption. None of that really comes into play in Poacher's Prize, which is set in and around a research station and nature preserve on the moon. The PCs are called into Elkrius, the research station, because someone has stolen a pair of animals overnight. But these aren't just any animals--the station has used advanced genetic recombination technology to bring back two specimens of an extinct species called mistuors (the animals depicted on the cover). The station doesn't want any adverse publicity or to involve the authorities, so the PCs are hired to find the culprits and get the animals back before they're killed or sold off-planet. It's an interesting set up for an adventure.

The first part of the Bounty takes place at the research station as the PCs investigate to figure out how the crime took place and "whodunnit". That last bit's actually the easiest, as the leader of the break-in gang is caught on video surveillance: a former employee of the research center named Darvis Olem. Still, I thought this part of the adventure was handled really well because there are a lot of different skills that can be used during the investigation and a variety of clues that can be uncovered, each of which adds a bit more information to the story of what happened and where the mistuors are now.

The second (shortest) part of the Bounty has the PCs racing toward where they think the mistuors are being held but having to overcome several obstacles along the way (such as not getting lost, removing felled trees on the road, etc.). This was presented well, with reasonable consequences for failure. (I hate adventure design where players just keep rolling dice until they succeed).

The third part of the adventure takes place at the forest campsite where Darvis and his gang have set up several trailers for themselves and some cages for the mistuors while they wait for the animals' buyers to arrive. I really liked the set-up here, as it takes place at night and multiple approaches are viable. The PCs can race into the camp at full-speed for a "shock and awe" approach (which is what my group did--it made for the best vid-footage!), or, if they're very careful and stealthy, they could sneak into the camp, unlock the cages, load the mistruors into their own vehicles, and escape before anyone at the camp realises they're gone. Most groups probably will end up in combat, and the Bounty provides a plausible account of how the different poachers and their leader will respond depending on what the PCs do. The Space Colony flip-mat was repurposed to serve as the campsite, and worked surprisingly well.

After the animals are (presumably) rescued and returned to the research station, the scenario ends on a curiously ambiguous note. The research station is suspiciously adverse to contacting the authorities (even to turn over a captured Darvis), to the point where I wondered if they were themselves engaging in illicit behavior. Or, maybe I'm just reading too much into it. Anyway, Poacher's Prize meets the brief of a short, solid adventure, and I imagine most players will enjoy it.

The adventure starts in Thamal, a small city in a pastoral region of Verces. For some reason unexplained to the reader, tourism and its accompanying development has started to really flourish in the area around Thamal. But, the PCs are told by a city councilor named Kirslin Auganir, there have been frequent energy-flow disruptions from the nearby power plant, causing flickering lights and so forth. Drones sent to the computer-run power plant mysteriously disappear. The PCs are hired (for an indeterminate sum of money) to investigate and make sure Thamal's newfound growth doesn't end prematurely. It's a fine premise for an adventure.

When the PCs arrive, they need to overcome some minor obstacles (electrified oil puddles and little "scrap rats") before they learn the cause of the problem. A hesper (a type of fey) named Qhibell has taken up residence in the power station and is dampening its output to stop or slow the new tourism industry from destroying natural habitats in the area. The PCs can instantly solve the problem by getting her to agree to a vague compromise to preserve a portion of the natural habit around Thamal from development. In effect, the scenario creates a very realistic dilemma with deeply contentious political, moral, and practical dimensions and then presents a nicely gift-wrapped solution that instantly satisfies everyone involved. Done! (Or, the PCs can just kill Qhibell, which the scenario oddly sees as an equally satisfactory resolution). Anyway, after dealing with Qhibell one way or another, the PCs then need to hunt around for four missing parts of the reactor, each of which is hidden in a different part of the station.

It's all a bit saccharine for my tastes, though I guess the scenario would be a good introduction to the game for young players.

The two-page Foreword by James Jacobs explains what’s important about A History of Ashes: it asks the PCs to leave Korvosa! As he discusses, it’s a lot to ask a group that has invested ten levels’ worth of adventuring to leave the city they call home, but, on the other hand, it might just be time for a change. Amusingly, the players I ran this for thought they were just making a quick “there and back” jaunt to the Shoanti-held Cinderlands, and had no idea the entire chapter would be set there! It was interesting to read that the Shoanti come from one of Jacobs’ college campaigns, which is a real inspiration to homebrew GMs everywhere. I also have to note the irony where he says he was worried the art designer might not be able to fit double-digit volume numbers on the AP spines and then says “I wonder if it’s too early to start worrying about how we’re going to fit a triple-digit number on the spine”? 2008 James Jacob would be chuffed to hear from 2023 Jhaeman that this concern has been solved.

In the Adventure Background, we get some more information on the origin of the Crown of Fangs that influenced Ileosa’s evil machinations. The Crown is made from the fang of the slain blue dragon Kazavon and is one of seven relics that remained indestructible (and holds the power to potentially resurrect him). There’s also a bit about Serithtial, the enchanted sword used to slay him. Much of this will get covered in much greater depth in Chapter Five. I have to confess that I’m not a big fan of the “magic sword” and “seven scattered relics” elements—too video gamey for me.

At the very end of the last adventure, the PCs learned they would have to head to the Cinderlands to learn about the source of Ileosa’s new invulnerability. Part One assumes the PCs do depart on this journey, but acknowledges that getting the PCs out of town might not be easy and gives the GM a little advice on what to do if they’re reluctant. Assuming the PCs escort Vencarlo Orisini and Neolandus Kalepopolis to safety at Blackbird Ranch near Harse, the PCs will also get to catch up with Trinia Sabor (from Chapter One). Here, Neolandus reveals what he knows. This section also provides the GM with information on two of the major threats the PCs will encounter there: the Red Mantis assassins (led by a cool NPC named Cinnabar) and a Shoanti-hating ranger named the Cinderlander (whom I wish had been integrated more into the story so he’s not just another foe to fight).

Part Two has the PCs reaching the Kallow Mounds, home of the Skoan-Quah (the Clan of the Skull) where the shaman Thousand Bones explains that only the Sun Shaman of the xenophobic Sklar-Quah (Clan of the Sun) knows the history of the Crown of Fangs. But getting the Sun Shaman to speak to outsiders will be incredibly difficult, and the PCs will have to earn his respect. This is handled through a well-designed “respect points” mechanic wherein the PCs accumulate points for achieving specific tasks (or lose points for disrespecting Shoanti customs). Earning the respect points primarily comes from undertaking what we could uncharitably call “chained quests”—where each task has to be accompanied in order to move on to the next one. A lot of groups apparently felt a bit railroaded here, so one of the innovations of the hardcover version was to “unchain” the quests and allow them to be completed in any order (and make it so all of them weren’t necessary). This part of the chapter also introduces a good NPC, Krojun Eats-What-He-Kills (a rival who could become an ally). Interestingly, there’s a lot of discussion about the Shoanti potentially warring on Korvosa--either that’s a story theme that wasn’t taken up in the hardcover version, or I just missed it.

Part Three is set at a Thassilonian ruin called the Acropolis of the Thrallkeepers. The location has a cool backstory (that ties into Karzoug) and an excellent subterranean hazard (curious tentacles of a dormant havero). I found it hard to run though, as there are three other NPC groups to account for: Krojun’s band (stalking the PCs), Red Mantis assassins (trying to kill the PCs), and a Kuthite sect called the Brotherhood of Bones (observing and potentially allying with the PCs). It makes for, as a sub-heading calls it, “A Crowded Dungeon”! One bit I particularly liked is a bit of meta-fun in the form of a special glyph trap that has the PC standing still to try to make sense of it; every time the player asks whether their character has figured it out, the GM is encouraged to play along and say it’ll take just a little bit longer--and when the player has finally had enough and tries to have their PC stop, the magic of the trap means they might not be able to!

Part Four features a battle against a red reaver (a creature described above) that has occupied a site sacred to the Lyrune-Quah (Clan of the Moon). The PCs need to aid the Lyrune-Quah in order to earn the services of their Truthspeaker, a man who never lies and whose word therefore is trusted even by the sceptical Sklar-Quah.

Part Five is why the PCs need a Truthspeaker, and it’s a treat. One member of the group needs to get themselves swallowed by a ginormous fiendish purple worm named Cindermaw and then cut their way out! By doing so, they replicate the deeds of a legendary (and probably apocryphal) Shoanti hero, a deed that even the Sklar-Quah would have to admire. Because the AP version made the quests optional, my group didn’t do this one--which was disappointing (I would have loved to see it!), especially for the player of a PC who had received a vision from the Harrower that it was the character’s destiny.

Part Six is the big climax. Assuming the PCs have been successful and have earned enough respect points, they’re allowed to enter the Sklar-Quah’s campsite at a place called Flameford. There, the Sun Shaman forces them to endure one final challenge: the Trial of the Totems. This was really fun (at least for me as the GM!) as it’s truly a Strength- and endurance-based trial that allows all sorts of fun effects to come into play (the heat, lack of food, thirst, etc.). After the challenge, there’s a big final battle when Flameford is invaded by the Red Mantis and their gargoyle allies.

In the Conclusion, the Sun Shaman reveals what the PCs must do to defeat Ileosa: travel to a massive haunted castle named Scarwall and find the legendary lost sword Serithtial.

Overall, although I might quibble with a bit here or a bit there, Chapter Four is a real winner. It forms a memorable part of Curse of the Crimson Throne, as it gets the PCs out of their urban comfort zone and exposes them to entirely different cultures and challenges. If the GM does their job right, the players should finish the chapter hating and respecting the Cinderlands in equal measure.

The Colossus Heist begins aboard the Brass Clutch, Acquisitives faction leader Radaszam's private ship. Radaszam is over-the-top excited about this mission, which I loved, as he explains that the ship is headed toward Daimalko. Daimalko is a post-apocalyptic planet in Near Space infamous for the massive, mountain-sized mobile colossi that roam it and devour everything in their path (forcing the native humanoid damai into underground bunkers or small, far-flung settlements with survivalist ethos). The reason for heading to Daimalko is that three mysterious relics were stolen from the Safe, the Starfinder Society's highest-security vault, and were in the process of being sold to the Aspis Consortium on Daimalko when a tekenki (a particular type of colossus) attacked and swallowed them up--relics included! The mission then, which verges on the ridiculous or ridiculously fun (depending on your cinematic instincts) is for the PCs to figure out a way to get inside a colossus, find the relics, and then escape with their lives.

The first third or so of the scenario takes place as the Brass Clutch lands at New Valor, a small survivalist colony that has monitoring equipment to closely watch the movements of the colossi. Here, the PCs will have a couple of different options of well-portrayed NPCs to interact with in order to get a lead on someone who can help them with their mission. That NPC is Luku Gaiul, an almost caricature of a "grizzled veteran" (he wears an eyepatch, does one handed pull-ups while smoking cigarettes, and can do the splits to avoid attacks). Luku will tell the PCs that in order to lure the colossus who ate the relics, they could activate some old and remote "lifepulse beacons" which emit an electronic signal that simulates the concentrated presence of living creatures. But to actually get inside it, they'd have to somehow launch themselves into an open gun port as it does battle with another colossus! The NPCs are really fun, but the skill checks to persuade them to help are really high--we're talking DC 32 to DC 37 Diplomacy checks just for the preliminary NPCs who point the way to Luku.

The middle portion of the scenario has the PCs travel to Dead Reef and try to activate the lifepulse beacons. There are some dangers in their way, including sharpwings, razor-sharp coral formations, and quicksand. Once they succeed (or even if they don't, because Luku will do it for them), the two colossi are lured to the site and start to do battle. The PCs then use launch tubes ("escape pod launchers") on Luku's vehicle to try to get into the open gun port. Again, the DCs are pretty incredible--activating a lifepulse beacon is a DC 37 Computers check (or DC 42 in Subtier 9-10!). The fact that it doesn't really matter storywise because Luku will do it for them if they fail is sorta insulting, and it gives the impression that unless a a character has max ranks in a skill and has maxed the accompany ability score, there's no point in even trying to roll.

The final third of the adventure takes place inside the tekenki as it's involved in a battle with another colossus. There's a little random table of enviromental effects/hazards to replicate the course of the battle, which was a good idea (though could have been expanded and improved). The relics are scattered about a sort of open-plan mini-dungeon level with laser grids, automated defence turrets, and (perhaps inexplicably) monsters like caypins and assembly oozes. Did the makers of the colossi really think internal defence mechanisms of the sort were necessary? The Perception DCs to spot the hidden relics were again super high, but fortunately they could be detected with detect magic. I found this the least satisfying aspect of the adventure, as it goes from a larger than life cinematic spectacle to a somewhat confusing anti-climax. And unfortunately, the relics are just MacGuffins in the purest form--mysterious, indecipherable femur-sized objects for which the scenario provides no background on where or how they were found or why they're considered so important. PCs will discover that a certain troublesome ysoki was likely behind their theft, but it seems like a pretty desperate link to the Season 2 meta-plot.

I think I started this review in a more positive frame of mind, but despite the coffee, I've talked myself into a lower opinion of it. I think maybe the moral of the story is that if you want to portray the equivalent of a special effects action blockbuster movie, really go for it--keep the DCs reasonable, the story moving quickly, and the climax suitably epic. The Colossus Heist is a great elevator pitch, but the execution just can't live up to the promise.

Set entirely in the Egypt-analogue country of Osirion in Golarion, The Pact Stone Pyramid adds some fascinating lore to the setting. Several millennia ago, Osirion was ruled for a time by the legendary Four Pharaohs of Ascension--the Fiend Pharaoh, the Radiant Pharaoh, the Cerulean Pharaoh, and the Pharaoh of Numbers. To ensure they would never betray one another, they used an artifact called the Pact Stone to magically bind their life forces together, so that the death of one would be the death of all. The Pact Stone was hidden in a temple called Ahn'Selota outside the ancient city of Tumen. As every Osirionotologist knows, one pharaoh died from an incurable disease and thus dragged the others to their deaths, thus ending their reign.

All of that is history and legend, but the immediate background to the adventure involves a powerful noblewoman named Exemplar Khymrasa. Khymrasa has developed an obsession with the tales and believes that, if she finds the pyramid where the Pact Stone is hidden, she can resurrect the other three Pharaohs of Ascension and then out of gratitude they'll welcome her as the new fourth member of the quartet, displacing the current government of Osirion entirely and ushering in a new age. To that end, Khymrasa has used her vast resources to search high and low for Ahn'Selota, and has finally pinpointed the site. Though the pyramid is buried under tons of sand, she's launched an extensive excavation operation.

This is where the PCs come in. The Pathfinder Society also has an interest in the ancient pyramid, though (perhaps a bit oddly) not particularly because of the Pact Stone. Instead, Venture-Captain Jalden Krenshar explains in Sothis, it's because a cache of ancient lost seeds may be preserved there--seeds that could help the deserts of Osirion flourish with life. An horticulturalist sage named Hoffenburrow is on his way to the site from another mission, but Krenshar needs the PCs to slow down the dig for a week or two until he arrives and they can help him retrieve the seeds. Krenshar explains that the Pathfinders have one ace up their sleeves: an agent known only as the Mithral Scarab (recurring from Entombed with the Pharaohs) has gone undercover as a slave at the dig site, and will be the PCs' contact person there.

The module handwaves the journey to the dig site and assumes the PCs will be easily able to disguise themselves as slaves on the premise that there are thousands of people working there and no one really knows anyone else. I probably would have liked to have seen these aspects of the adventure fleshed out a bit, as the Disguise skill is often underused in adventures and would have been excellent to spotlight here. In any event, the Mithral Scarab soon finds the PCs and fills them in on her plan. She's been subtly spreading word that the dig is cursed, and that terrible things will happen if it continues. If the PCs can assist with some tangible sabotage, that will lend credence to the rumor and slow things down. This part of the adventure is really fun and open-ended. The module suggests several different things (with associated skill DCs) the PCs can do for sabotage, such rigging pulleys to fail, cutting wagon axles, or even animating the dead at the slave graveyard! PCs love to have an excuse to be sneaky and creative in wrecking things--for example, my son used illusion magic to help bolster the curse story. My only suggestion for this part of the adventure is that it would have been really helpful if the module gave the GM more information on the timeline of the dig and how much certain actions would slow it down--something like an abstract "Sabotage Points" mechanism would have been great here.

The dig site isn't unguarded, of course, and as the sabotage mounts Exemplar Khymrasa will start sending out forces to find the culprits. These include her allies, the Sand Sage (an expert in divination magic!) and Master Soan and his monks from the Shrine of Horns in Egorian. These NPCs have full artwork and write-ups in the appendix (as does Khymrasa), and are suitably dangerous foes with interesting backstories. There's a lot of flexibility in how the GM handles this section of the adventure, which is something I always appreciate.

At some point, despite the sabotage, Khymrasa's army of slaves will succeed in uncovering the pyramid. The second part of the module takes place inside Ahn-Selota and assumes the PCs either rush inside to explore it before Khymrasa's scouts can, or that they actually strike up a deal with her by promising to bring her the Pact Stone on the condition they keep anything else. The pyramid itself is certainly not another dull, uninspired dungeon crawl. True, there are traps, monsters, and treasures, but some real originality and thought went into designing it. For foes, I loved the "reincarnix" (a monster that, once killed, comes back to life in a different form a few rounds later), the "portal golem" (a golem with a permanent passwall in its chest that provides access to different areas of the pyramid), a swarm that's a deadly combination of invisible and has an aura of silence around it (meaning a PC might be getting chewed up by something they can't see and can't warn the others about), and more. For traps and puzzles, there's a classic "doubling coin" trap (more money seems great at first until the hoard risks crushing you to death), a treasury protected by an antilife shell, gem-capped stakes that, when pulled out of the wall brings a vampire on the other side back to life, and the need to figure out to use gaseous form (or super-shrinking) to navigate narrow tubes connecting one level to the next. There's some really clever elements here. (My PCs actually ended up bypassing some of the early rooms by deciding to simply dimension door in, and I had to quickly do some math to see where they ended up.)

Something akin to a "boss" in the pyramid is Suekahn, a "ghalshoaton devil" bound to the pyramid until it has slain 56 intruders. He's an interesting figure because he actually wants the PCs to disable as many of the traps as possible so that more people will come into the pyramid, and sometimes he'll bail the group out when they get in a bind. The appendix has a two-page entry on ghalshoaton devils--they've never been updated and collected elsewhere, potentially because the Osirion-specific nature of their powers and backstory doesn't necessarily fit so well their being devils from Hell.

A great twist is that the legendary Pact Stone is not at all what Khymrasa envisioned. Instead of a portable artifact that the PCs could bring out to her, it actually constitutes the floor of an entire chamber of the pyramid and is completely immobile! Just by walking on the floor together, the PCs could become temporarily bound together themselves by its magic, which has some really interesting implications: their hit points are pooled, healing someone heals the pool, but if one dies, they all die! The pyramid also contains some items tying into the Aucturn Enigma, including a countdown clock and The Last Theorem.

Once the PCs emerge from the pyramid, the third and final part of the adventure begins. While they've been inside, Khymrasa's forces will have found and captured the Mithral Scarab and Hoffenburrow, and are holding them hostage. The PCs may be able to trick Khymrasa by giving her something else found in the pyramid and claiming it's the Pact Stone--if so, everyone may be able to walk away without further violence. Probably more likely is that there's a final encounter that could be pretty exciting depending on how it's handled.

As I said in the intro, The Pact Stone Pyramid features a great mix of scripted and improv-style elements. The backstory is fascinating, the encounters are original, and there's great flavour throughout. I highly recommend this one.

One of the virtues of Starfinder's concept of the Drift is the natural story engine of having chunks of the multiverse torn free with each use. In The Infernal Gallery, it's a chunk of Stygia, the fifth layer of Hell! More specifically, it's an art gallery named the Palace of Delusion, owned by the "nightmare collector" Duke Crocell. With his precious building now floating somewhere in the Drift, Duke Crocell has hired a team of mercenaries named the Devil's Talon to secure it. What he doesn't know, however, is that a salvage ship named the Clutter Collector (a ship appearing in some previous scenarios) has already been there, and that its crew looted a painting before starting to succumb to hallucinations and fleeing back to Absalom Station. The painting was sold to the (recurring NPC) pawn broker Julzakama before making its way to the Starfinder Society. And that's where the PCs come into the picture.

After a briefing by the walking snooze-fest Venture-Captain Arvin, the Starfinders make their way to the Downlow district to speak with Julzakama. The scenario does a great job making Julzakama really pop with the perfect mix of bluster and humor. There's a lot of really funny little bits here, like him trying to extort more money from the PCs (when's he's already been paid for his cooperation by Arvin), giving people mildly offensive nicknames, giving PCs he's met before in previous scenarios a discount on energy drinks, or praising that nice Datch lady on the holo-vids. Julzakama explains that the painting (of a Veskarium war hero named Major Sifkali, done by a famous verthani artist named Aelon Vimariss) was found by the Clutter Collector on a piece of floating Drift real estate that the crew dubbed the Drift Bog. The Drift Bog, of course, is where the PCs need to go next. It's a solid set-up to the adventure. (oddly, there really isn't any special significance to the subject matter of the portrait or information on why an infernal duke of all people would want to collect it)

When the PCs arrive at the Drift Bog, they're confronted by the Devil's Talons starship, Malice. There can be some role-playing to start out with, as the ship's captain wants to know if the Starfinders have reinforcements on the way, but a battle is inevitable. I tend to zone out during Starfinder starship combat, and I don't remember anything about it. There are some Drift hazards to complicate things, and interestingly the PCs take a point of Infamy if they destroy Malice rather than just disable it (an unusual feature of starship combats).

The Drift Bog is, as the name indicates, a chunk of floating swamp--with a structure visible in the distance. I really like how the scenario rewards PCs who do the sorts of sensible things space explorers should do, like take Tricorder-style environmental and biological samples (testing the water, insect-life, air, etc.). This wasn't explicitly asked for by Arvin, but doing so provides some small mechanical bonuses and contributes to the secondary success conditions. Starfinder's decision to make environmental protections available to everyone all the time takes away some of the fun of exploring a naturally hazardous environment, unfortunately. While travelling through the swamp, PCs will find the dead bodies of several Devil's Talons mercenaries, fight an encounter against leech-like parasites called "slithermaws", and potentially rescue a trapped soul that has been bound in Hell for eons. It's all done well and flavourfully, though it has my pet peeve of allowing Perception to substitute for Survival which only continues to elevate Perception into the uber-skill.

The Palace of Delusions itself constitutes only a few chambers, but they're full of traps, loads of objets d'art (Arvin apparently wants it all!), and a memorably weird encounter against a collection of various creepy animated toys. One of the chambers contains a poor bird from Elysium who has been caged and begs for rescue. In a clever twist, the bird is actually an imp who wants to hitchhike a ride back to the Material Plane--there's a fair chance the PCs won't notice until it's too late and accrue a negative boon because of it. Once the PCs have thoroughly looted the place, they can return to Absalom Station without further incident.

There are a lot of little creepy things suggested by the scenario (delusions, phantom touches, etc.) to help build the right amount of creepy tension, but it's really up to the GM to make it work. All in all, it's a solid scenario.

In Test Flight, a shirren starship manufacturer named United Interfaith Engineering (nicely incorporated from the Starship Operations Manual) has developed a new Grimshaw design meant to be robust but affordable for adventurers and explorers. The PCs are hired by one of the company’s project managers to conduct a test flight from Absalom Station to a small moon orbiting Liavara. The project manager, a shirren named J’scib, has awesome artwork (love the suitcoat and bowtie!) and the description of his office is great fun. I’d happily see more of him. There’s also a fun little bit when J’scib is leading the PCs to the hangar where he asks one PC for the names of their parents or first pet, and if they answer, he mocks them for lacking the common sense not to give away valuable clues to hackers. I appreciate the humour early in the adventure.

The Grimshaw basically looks like a house fly, and is unlike any Starfinder ship I’ve ever seen before. Once in space, the PCs’ main goal is to test out its various systems. This is done by each PC making two skill checks, but they get to choose whether to make easy (low DC) checks or hard (high DC) checks. The harder the checks, the more “Data Points” they’ll accumulate, but each PC only gets to make two checks in total. I liked the risk-reward mechanic here. The checks themselves are pretty pedestrian, but a good GM might be able to add some flavour to make things more interesting.

The encounter in the Bounty is with a pair of adolescent voraijas (essentially, space whales). The adventure gives PCs the option to engage in starship combat with them, or to use skill checks to lure them back to their home. Regardless of what happens, a Xenowarden ship shows up after 4 rounds to solve the problem, which is one of those “no matter what, everything’s going to be fine and you can’t really fail” plot elements I always hate in RPGs. Decisions without consequences are poor story design.

Once the PCs arrive at Liavra, they’re paid off and receive an extra reward if they’ve accumulated enough Data Points (with, oddly enough, big bonuses to Data Points if they peacefully drove off the Liavra and deductions if they killed them). And that’s that!

In my very first review of a Starfinder adventure almost six years ago now, I complained about its “Space Disney” feel. I’ve reconciled myself to the fact that that’s mostly what Starfinder is, and this Bounty definitely fits into that mould.