A Pathfinder Roleplaying Game compatible adventure for four to six PCs of 5th to 7th level
The sun rises on a beautiful morning to find the farming families of Pindleton already out in the fields, tending their crops and collecting their harvests. Their fields cover many acres, and have always yielded a great enough bounty to not only feed the village, but provide enough for sale at the market in a nearby city… yet the people are in danger of starvation. A danger from the depths of the world has come to the surface, their intentions as dark as their scales, and their plans well calculated and insidious.
Shadows of the Deep introduces a new sub-race of kobold to your campaign, one that has not only survived free in the dark and dangerous world beneath the surface, but thrived. It will challenge the investigative skills of your PCs, as well as set them on edge as they wonder what surprise these cunning foes have waiting for them around the next bend. As the adventure begins the party is asked discover who and what is stealing the harvest from the farming village of Pindleton, and bring them to justice. The cunning and creativity of the kobolds makes this challenging to be sure, but the true test begins when the adventurers track them to their Warren, which they will defend with every trap, trick and tactic in their arsenal…
Adventure through a living dungeon, that changes and responds to the presence of your PCs!
Face cunning foes who are more than a pile of hit points waiting to fight adventurers!
Set the stage for future adventures in the depths of the world!
This module clocks in at 36 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 31 pages of content, so let’s take a look, shall we?
This being an adventure-review, the following contains SPOILERS. Potential players should jump to the conclusion.
…
..
.
Still here? All right! The town of Pindleton, a farming community that houses no legendary heroes, but which drips in local color, has been suffering -the picturesque area has been hounded by inexplicable raids, to the point where the desperate villagers had to even enforce a curfew. The town with its families and the level of detail that is provided, including a budding sorceror just asking for the cohort-spot and copious red herrings, is surprisingly detailed, but not mapped – still, I have to congratulate the author for managing to evoke a sense of idyllic tranquility disturbed that is hard to conjure forth.
Depending on the steps and investigations taken, one or more of 3 sample raids may kick the module into high gear – the pretty easy tracking pointing the PCs towards the obvious dungeon awaiting them -a cramped warren that seriously will impede the progress and capacity of the adventurers, rendering the dread shadow scale tribe of kobolds a powerful force indeed – the copious traps and environmental restrictions alongside the numerous secret doors will make for a supreme challenge – remember the by now cult example of how kobolds can take down high-level adversaries with smarts? Well, in the hands of a capable DM, this module is just that. From dire weasels to numerous named kobolds with class levels to a shadow dragon hatchling, the shadow scales are deadly adversaries and once the exploration of their warren is done, PCs WILL have newfound respect and/or hatred for the kobolds. Worse, they may realize that these exceedingly-well-organized kobolds only have been an expedition force, with the true power of the shadow scales still remaining at large…somewhere.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good – while I noticed some minor punctuation glitches et., I encountered no game-breaker level glitches. Layout adheres to AAW Games’ beautiful 2-column full-color standard and the pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience and hyperlinked. The pdf’s neat cartography of the warrens comes with a player-friendly version that thankfully presents the secret doors as regular walls, so if you cut it out, you will have no issues.
Daniel Marshall’s talent creating believable, cohesive social structures can be seen in full force in the sample town and indeed, extends itself to the adversaries encountered herein. While the builds are not exceedingly complex or mind-shattering, this is still a neat example of a conservative module with copious read-aloud texts, one that takes the “Small, but fierce” slogan of kobolds popularized by Kobold Press and provides the module to drive exactly that truism home – a challenging dungeon crawl with smart adversaries, this is well worth a final verdict of 4.5 stars, rounded down to 4 for the purpose of this platform.
An Endzeitgeist.com review
This module clocks in at 36 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 31 pages of content, so let’s take a look, shall we?
This being an adventure-review, the following contains SPOILERS. Potential players should jump to the conclusion.
…
..
.
Still here? All right! The town of Pindleton, a farming community that houses no legendary heroes, but which drips in local color, has been suffering -the picturesque area has been hounded by inexplicable raids, to the point where the desperate villagers had to even enforce a curfew. The town with its families and the level of detail that is provided, including a budding sorceror just asking for the cohort-spot and copious red herrings, is surprisingly detailed, but not mapped – still, I have to congratulate the author for managing to evoke a sense of idyllic tranquility disturbed that is hard to conjure forth.
Depending on the steps and investigations taken, one or more of 3 sample raids may kick the module into high gear – the pretty easy tracking pointing the PCs towards the obvious dungeon awaiting them -a cramped warren that seriously will impede the progress and capacity of the adventurers, rendering the dread shadow scale tribe of kobolds a powerful force indeed – the copious traps and environmental restrictions alongside the numerous secret doors will make for a supreme challenge – remember the by now cult example of how kobolds can take down high-level adversaries with smarts? Well, in the hands of a capable DM, this module is just that. From dire weasels to numerous named kobolds with class levels to a shadow dragon hatchling, the shadow scales are deadly adversaries and once the exploration of their warren is done, PCs WILL have newfound respect and/or hatred for the kobolds. Worse, they may realize that these exceedingly-well-organized kobolds only have been an expedition force, with the true power of the shadow scales still remaining at large…somewhere.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good – while I noticed some minor punctuation glitches et., I encountered no game-breaker level glitches. Layout adheres to AAW Games’ beautiful 2-column full-color standard and the pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience and hyperlinked. The pdf’s neat cartography of the warrens comes with a player-friendly version that thankfully presents the secret doors as regular walls, so if you cut it out, you will have no issues.
Daniel Marshall’s talent creating believable, cohesive social structures can be seen in full force in the sample town and indeed, extends itself to the adversaries encountered herein. While the builds are not exceedingly complex or mind-shattering, this is still a neat example of a conservative module with copious read-aloud texts, one that takes the “Small, but fierce” slogan of kobolds popularized by Kobold Press and provides the module to drive exactly that truism home – a challenging dungeon crawl with smart adversaries, this is well worth a final verdict of 4.5 stars, rounded down to 4 for the purpose of this platform.
Endzeitgeist out.