review – Page 3 – d20 Diaries

Pathfinder Society Scenarios: Debt to the Quah and Tapestry’s Trial

Today we’re going to take a look at two of the most recent Pathfinder Society Scenarios that are currently available for purchase, and let you know we thought. Although you’ll find references to events in each that I liked or disliked, and comments about specific characters, these scenarios are not explored in detail. It’s not my intention to spoil the events in these scenarios, or give summaries and full reviews, but to share my opinions and provide recommendations. That said, if you want to avoid even minor spoilers I recommend you check out a different article. Whether you intend to use them in home games of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, sanctioned scenarios for use with the Pathfinder Society Organized Play, or just want to read a nifty new adventure, we’ve got you covered! So let’s get cracking!

10-14 - Debt to the Quah Pathfinder Society Scenario #10-14: Debt to the Quah is a Tier 3-7 adventure written by Adrian Ng. It takes place in Varisia’s Storval Plateau, in a sepulchre along the Muschkal River, and heavily features the Shoanti people and their culture. For more information on Varisia, the Storval Plateau, and the Shoanti, check out Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea World Guide, Pathfinder Player Companion: Varisia, Birthplace of Legends, and Pathfinder Adventure Path 10: A History of Ashes (Curse of the Crimson Throne book 4 of 6). Debt to the Quah features creatures from Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary, Bestiary 3, Monster Codex, and Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Occult Bestiary (although all of the necessary stat blocks are included within the scenario). In addition to the Pathfinder Core Rulebook it utilizes content from the GameMastery Guide and Ultimate Equipment, and heavily uses the influence subsystem from Ultimate Intrigue. The influence subsystems and all of its relevant rules are included in an easy to understand Appendix at the back of this scenario. Finally, Debt to the Quah makes use of one map: Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics: Dungeon.

Recently the Shoanti people of the Storval Plateau were angered by the actions of the Pathfinder Society, when an over-enthusiastic Pathfinder raided and destroyed an important Shoanti burial ground — and then passed it off as Thassilonian. Angered (with reason) at the actions of this Pathfinder many Shoanti are calling for the expulsion of the Pathfinder Society from their lands (or worse!). This adventure tasks the PCs with attending a Shoanti council where they will need to return the grave goods taken from the site, and attempt to salvage what they can of the relationship between the Pathfinder Society and the representatives from the various Shoanti Quahs. More specifically, their goal is to earn a chance to fix the damage that has been done to the ancient Shoanti sepulchre, and make what reparations they can. This scenario doesn’t continue any ongoing storylines and isn’t connected to any factions. If you’ve got any characters who have played a PFS scenario involving the Shoanti people (such as #4-06: The Green Market, #8-22: Wrath of the Fleshwarped Queen, or #8-23: Graves of Crystalmaw Pass), now is a good time to play them. In addition, characters with other connections to the Shoanti, characters who have a respect for foreign cultures and history, and characters who are diplomatic, will all find something to be excited about in this scenario. Reckless, destructive, and rude characters are not going to excel in this adventure.

Michele Giorgi-Sklar — Kemchet Flame Stoker, chosen representative of the Sklar-Quah (Sun Clan). Illustrated by Michele Giorgi. Art courtesy of Paizo Inc.

First off: I love the premise of this scenario! As a student (once upon a time) of anthropology and archaeology, I adore any adventure that goes out of its way to add some semblance of reality to Pathfinder excavations. So, cleaning up after some shoddy treasure hunter? Sign me up! In addition, the Shoanti are one of my very favourite ethnic groups in the world of Golarion, so getting both in one adventure had me more than a little excited. Putting aside my biases, this is a really fun adventure. It has some useful handouts, lots of nice art, and an interesting cast of NPCs. Influencing the clans at the council meeting was both enjoyable and rewarding, but could be difficult for some GMs to run. It features seven important NPCs (Payah Against the Winds, Cousin to All, Kemchet Flame Stoker, Lake at Dawn, Memory Tender, Rollicks in Waves, and Togimal in Shadow), each of whom has their own personality, values, and pet peeves. This could get confusing for GMs and players alike. However, with some prep work (or great improv) this scene is going to be tense and exciting — a lot’s riding on it, after all! Repairing the tomb and the devastation wreaked there was very enjoyable for me, and the more… talkative inhabitant of the sepulchre was a really nice touch! The final encounter is quite a challenge, both for the participants synergy and for the encounter context. This battle is likely to cause some PCs to hesitate or stress, which leads to one of my only issues with this scenario. However, my relatively vague comments on it are heavier on the spoilers than I typically share, so if that makes you nervous skip the next paragraph.

If something is meant to be in a tomb that you’re restoring, but that something is hazardous to you, should you preserve it or destroy it? A nice dilemma! Unfortunately, this scenario doesn’t embrace that conundrum and has no notes on what should be done if PCs attempt to circumvent it instead of using more destructive methods. A bit of a missed opportunity, I think. Now, most groups will have no such qualms and leap into the encounter without issue, but for those groups who do show professional restraint, their hesitation could prove their undoing, and cause this nice challenging encounter to be too difficult. I’m curious to hear how this shakes out in play!

Overall, I really enjoyed the topic, content, and execution of this adventure. It’s right up my alley, and I can’t wait to play it. I give it four out of five stars.

10-15 - Tapestry's Trial Pathfinder Society Scenario #10-15: Tapestry’s Trial is a Tier 7-11 adventure written by Alex Greenshields. It takes place in Axis, a lawfully aligned plane. For more information on Axis and its denizens check out Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea World Guide and Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Planar Adventures. Tapestry’s Trial features creatures and templates from Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary, Bestiary 2, Bestiary 5, and Monster Codex (although all of the necessary stat blocks are included within the scenario) and utilizes the Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Museum, Gamemastery Map Pack: Magic Academy, and might also use a blank flip-mat. In addition to the Pathfinder Core Rulebook, this scenario includes content from the Advanced Player’s Guide, Ultimate Magic, and Pathfinder Player Companion: Heroes of Golarion (although Heroes of Golarion is not needed to run this scenario). This mission is not directly related to any Pathfinder Society factions, although thematically it aligns well with members of the Grand Lodge and Dark Archives.

This adventure tasks the PCs with travelling to Axis, finding the legendary sorceress Hao Jin, and attaining her help in repairing the Hao Jin tapestry, a powerful artifact and demiplane used by the Pathfinder Society for a whopping seven seasons of play. This scenario continues the ongoing saga of the Hao Jin Tapestry, and any characters who have interacted with the Hao Jin Tapestry — particularly those who helped attain, defend, or protect it — will have ample reason to get involved in this scenario. It’s also a direct continuation of events from Pathfinder Society Scenario Special #10-00: Hao Jin Cataclysm, and Scenarios #10-11: The Hao Jin Hierophant and #10-13: Fragments of Antiquity. Although I won’t get into the reasons why (to avoid spoilers), characters who were involved in any of the following scenarios will find a familiar face/event or two seen/mentioned: #4-16: The Fabric of Reality, #5-09: The Traitor’s Lodge, #6-98: Serpent’s Rise, #7-09: The Blakros Connection, and #7-23: Abducted in Aether. I highly recommend you bring along such characters (although not necessarily more than those who have an interest in Hao Jin and her tapestry). Finally, any worshippers of Abadar, Brigh, Chaldira Zuzaristan, and Pharasma will have a chance to visit or glimpse their god’s domain throughout the course of this scenario, which can be an awesome and fulfilling character moment.

Leonardo Santanna-TheMaker — The Maker, an eccentric kolyarut from #10-15: Tapestry’s Trial. Illustrated by Leonardo Santanna. Art courtesy of Paizo Inc.

Planar adventures are tricky. Players need to feel like they’re someplace totally different — a whole other world — but not so much that it hinders play. NPCs need to be extra memorable, locations need to be extra unique, and through it all you need to try to distill a whole planar environment into a short amount of time and a few encounters. Players want to experience a plane — after all, it’s likely they’ll only go there once! This scenario does an awesome job of showcasing Axis. The place is at once understandable and completely alien, with cool environments, and a lot of fun NPCs. And by a lot, I mean a lot! There’s a whopping nine new NPCs to interact with. I really enjoyed the various social interactions, particularly the entire final sequence of events. Many of these social interactions and encounters have unexpected effects and consequences, some of which will even have effect past the end of this scenario (which is always a treat!). Of the various locations you can visit I particularly enjoyed The Floating Library, not only for its contents and librarian, but also for the view. PCs can literally see a few domains of the gods from this vantage point, which is a really nice moment. Although social encounters and big decisions are the major focus of this scenario, it’s not without its combats. Chaotic and unlucky groups could have as many as four combat encounters (or more if they continue to attract the ‘law enforcement’ of Axis), while other groups will have as few as one combat encounter. The battles that are included are enjoyable, and all have extra considerations and complications for player’s take into account, which is a really nice touch. Overall, I love this scenario. I think it’s going to be a satisfying, exciting experience, that has a lot of cool moments, and ramifications for further scenarios. I give it five out of five stars.

Thanks for joining us today. Tune in later this week for a look at this month’s new d20 releases!

Jessica

D&D Starter Set

For Valentine’s Day my seven-year old son received the D&D Starter Set. He was pretty proud of this turn of events, as it marked the very first d20 product he has ever personally owned. He has some hand-me-down books, of course. And he reads my books all the time, but this one? This one was HIS.

Today we’re going to take quick look at the contents of the D&D Starter Set, and let you know what we thought. For more information on our experiences playing through the D&D Starter Set, tune in later this week!

The D&D Starter Set comes in a high quality, really nice looking box that is deeper than necessary. Although this might seem like a waste, at first, it’s not. The box is the perfect size to also place a D&D Player’s Handbook in, which any fan of the D&D Starter Set is going to want to do pretty quick. You can also fit in a notebook and a few pens, which is also a must have. Being able to pack all of that up in the box is great.

D&D Starter Set

D&D Starter Set and the dice that come with it.

Inside the box you’ll find a set of beautiful little dice, swirled in shades of vibrant blue, with bright white numbers. The dice are really nice looking and incredibly easy to read — which is a must! I despise dice you have to squint at just to figure out what they say. Not that it matters what I think, since the dice belong to my son. Happily, he loves them, ranking them as his very favourite set of dice (he owns two sets and a variety of extra dice of all kinds). There are six dice total: a d20, d12, d10, d8, d6, and d4. There is no percentile dice in this set, or extra d20, which is a little unfortunate. It’s always nice to have a second d20 for all those advantage and disadvantage rolls.

Starter Set Dice — Dice from the D&D Starter Set

Beneath the dice is the D&D Starter Set Rulebook. 32 pages long, this 8 1/2″ by 11″ booklet contains all the rules needed to play and run a game of Dungeons and Dragons. The first seven pages explain how to play D&D, the six ability scores, and their uses, as well as advantage, disadvantage, and so on. After that there’s six pages on combat, six pages on adventuring (including equipment), four pages on spellcasting, a description of all the spells mentioned in the D&D Starter Set, and finally, the back page is an appendix that lists conditions. The book does it’s job well, providing enough information without overwhelming players too much. That said, it doesn’t contain any information on creating your own characters, so anyone who wants to move on from the Starter Set into regular D&D will need to pick up the D&D Player’s Handbook.

The second booklet in the D&D Starter Set is an adventure: Lost Mine of Phandelver. This adventure is a whopping 64 pages long — much longer than I expected from a starter set! I was really impressed. The adventure is split into four major parts: The opening ambush and a small dungeon crawl, time socializing and solving problems in the town of Phandalin, a sandboxy exploration of the surrounding wilds where your players can further investigate the quests they may have taken on, and the finale, a final large dungeon crawl. Before the adventure is an introduction, which gives a quick run down of how DMing works, and explains how to go about it. At the end of the adventure is an appendix containing all the magic times found in the adventure, and a second appendix which contains details on all the monsters and enemies found in the adventure. Finally, the back page of the booklet is a rules index, which lists different rules and the page numbers that they can be found in the Starter Set Rulebook.

D&D Starter Set Contents — Contents of theD&D Starter Set

Lost Mine of Phandelver is a fun adventure. It’s got a simple opening premise that’s easy to attach a wide variety of characters to, and has a good balance of combat, exploration, investigation, and social encounters. The plot line is easy to follow, and contains a few twists. It’s not overly complex and will appeal to a wide audience. Throughout the adventure there are plenty of notes for DMs, which give further guidance, rules references, and advice. This is super handy for new DMs and was really well handled.

The town of Phandalin was interesting, but I found it a bit brief. The only locations detailed are those where the PCs can pick up quests, which is unfortunate. That said, this adventure isn’t made for me, it’s made for new DMs. And for new DMs? There’s more than enough details, information, and NPCs to work with. Plenty of the townsfolk have tasks and information they can give players, links to other organizations (which can be used for continuing the campaign after you’re done with the Starter Set), plus there’s some trouble in town the players can stumble into on their own. Many of these quests can be completed in the region surrounding Phandalin, in Part Three of the adventure.

There’s some nice maps in Lost Mine of Phandelver, and art representing all of the monsters that need it (although not all of the monsters total). A few humanoid enemies are also illustrated, although none of the NPCs are. I really wish there was art for at least one of them — Silas Hallwinter, for example — but despite lacking art, each NPC in the book has a line or to about their physical appearance and behaviour, so DMs aren’t adrift.

Overall, Lost Mine of Phandelver is a fun beginner’s adventure with lots for player’s to do. It showcases the major types and styles of D&D, and weaves it all together in an entertaining and coherent story. I was really pleased with the adventure’s length. Groups will get more than a few play sessions out of this one, which is really nice to see.

Contents of the D&D Starter Set

Goblins!

Cragmaw Hideout

This brings us to the final components contained in the D&D Starter Set: pre-generated characters. This box contains five already made characters. A neutral good hill dwarf cleric soldier, a lawful good human fighter folk hero, a lawful neutral human fighter noble, a neutral lightfoot halfling rogue criminal, and a chaotic good high elf wizard acolyte. The character sheets are easy to read and understand. Abilities are explained right on them, with more information on each one’s race, class, and background on the back of the sheet. Each of these characters has their own personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws which is simple to understand and really useful for roleplaying the characters. As the adventure will allow you to get multiple level ups, the back also has detailed information on what each character gains at each level. The best part? Each of the characters feels unique and fun, and none of them have names or genders. Which is great! Each player gets to decide their personal identity, and add those finishing touches themselves. I thought the characters were all really nicely done. The only downside? Whoever plays the wizard will need to make use of the Starter Set Rulebook to find information on their spells.

Contents of the D&D Starter Set

Pre-generated characters from the D&D Starter Set

Which is it! The entire contents of the D&D Starter Set! This little box is packed full of fun, with everything you need to get started playing D&D. The dice are gorgeous, the rulebook is useful but not overwhelming, the adventure is fun, varied, and much longer than I expected, and the characters are well-made and enjoyable to use. The only thing this starter set lacks? A play mat and minis, but technically you don’t need those to play D&D. They really add to the game, though, so player’s who continue on to play D&D are likely to wish they had some. But, the best part of the D&D Starter Set? The cost! This box is an amazing value! We picked ours up for only $15 Canadian, which is only a few dollars more than the cost of a set of dice. Getting the rules and a good sized adventure in there, as well, makes this a great deal. I highly recommend the D&D Starter Set for anyone interested in learning how to play D&D, or for anyone who just wants a nifty new adventure and some cool dice. Well worth the investment!

Thanks for joining us today. We’ll talk again soon when we discuss our experiences playing through the D&D Starter Set adventure: Lost Mine of Phandelver.

Until then,

Jessica

Review: Construct Handbook

Today on d20 Diaries we’re taking a peek between the covers of one of the wonderful new products that came out at the end of last year: Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Construct Handbook. If you’re a follower of this blog you’ll know this was a book I was thrilled to get my hands on this past holiday season, and I was not disappointed.

Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Construct Handbook is a thick softcover book that is 64 pages long. Although the Pathfinder Campaign Setting line typically contains world lore (for all players) and some extra material for GMs, this book is a bit different. Equally geared at both players and GMs, it contains detailed rules on creating constructs, class archetypes, magic items, and a lot of new golems and golem templates. The cover features some atmospheric artwork by Ignacio Bazán Lazcano, which depicts the iconic arcanist Enora giving commands to her adamantine golem, as it battles a quantium golem. (Talk about epic career goals! Haha).

The front inside cover shines a light on some famous construct innovators, providing an image and a paragraph of information on each. The crafters showcased are Sidrah Imeruss, founder of the Technic League and an expert in the robots of Numeria; Toth Bhreacher, founder of the prestigious Golemworks in Magnimar; and Hadia Al-Dannah, a world renowned Qadiran mathematician, former scholar of the Clockwork Cathedral in Absalom, and expert on clockwork construction. The information is brief but lends a face to the construct trade, which is really nice. It also serves to give any characters interested in crafting golems a famous mentor or role model to live up to. A nice bit of fluff and backstory for any characters interested in seizing it.

construct handbook - icons of construct history — Icons of Construct History: Sidrah Imeruss, Toth Bhreacher, and Hadia Al-Dannah.

After that we have the table of contents, and then we hop right into the introduction. In addition to touching on what’s going to be in this lovely little tome, the introduction also discusses how the general populace of Golarion views golems and their crafters (both positives and negatives), and the difficulty in obtaining appropriate raw materials to craft a golem (which can often become an adventure in and of itself!). The Construct Handbook primarily focuses on clockworks, golems, and robots, but explains that there are may other kinds of constructs. For each of these major kinds of contracts it doesn’t touch upon, it contains a paragraph of information that lets you know where those constructs were first introduced, how compatible they are with the templates in this book, and where you can look for further information on them (if applicable). Constructs mentioned in this way are animated objects, colossi, and homunculi.

Leaving behind the introduction we hop right into the first chapter: ‘Crafting Constructs.’ This section of the book is six pages long and is really, really useful for anyone who wants to make a construct. Not sure I can stress that enough! Haha. It starts by taking a look at every step in the construct crafting process and explaining it fully and clearly. That includes everything from the requirements, cost, and finding materials, to time, and skill checks. It then details other methods that you could use to craft a construct, such as the use of the infamous golem manuals, purchase, and theft. After that it talks about construct modifications, which were first introduced in Pathfinder RPG: Ultimate Magic. It offers four new basic modifications (I particularly liked the movement and resistances modifications) and six really cool new complex modifications (be sure to check out construct shelter, mind link, and self-repair).

construct handbook - making a construct

The next chapter is six pages in length and contains eleven new archetypes. Some of these archetypes fell into expected themes: those that create or destroy constructs, but others I found quite surprising. My favourite archetype was definitely the clocksmith, a wizard archetype that falls solidly in the ‘create construct’ category. This delightful archetype lets you create a magical clockwork familiar in place of your regular familiar, and gives you craft construct as a bonus feat at level one instead of scribe scroll. In place their arcane school powers, clocksmiths gain a bonus on saving throws against effects created by constructs, and increase their effective spell level when casting spells that target constructs. At later levels they can tinker with their clockwork familiars, granting them eidolon evolutions. Super cool and thematic! I love it!

Other archetypes that fall solidly in the ‘create construct’ category include the construct caller, an unchained summoner archetype that allows your eidolon to be a construct; the cruorchymist, an alchemist archetype that gives up its poison abilities and mutagen to have a homunculus familiar which he can heal or alter on the fly with his own blood. Although I enjoy the construct caller, I find the cruorchymist is really rough on your CON score, with one ability dealing CON drain and another dealing CON damage to your character. Ouch!

arcanotheurge - construct handbook - alyssa mccarthy — A construct caller. Illustrated by Alyssa McCarthy. Art courtesy of Paizo Inc.

Of the archetypes that focus on destroying constructs, I found that I liked the construct saboteur best. This rogue archetype swaps out knowledge (dungeoneering) and knowledge (local) as class skills in exchange for knowledge (arcana) and knowledge (engineering). They gain arcane strike at first level instead of trap finding, and gain a special kind of ability called an arcane sabotage, which is essentially construct hindering rogue talents accessible only though this archetype. My favourite of the arcane sabotage options are diminish senses (which can blind a construct for a turn) and magic vulnerability (which replaces a construct’s magic immunity with spell resistance instead). Most of the arcane sabotage options also allow you to extend of bolster their effects by giving up any sneak attack damage that you would deal. Super cool!

I was pleasantly surprised by the Forgefather’s seeker paladin archetype that enables pious worshippers of Torag to destroy dangerous artificial creations. They can smite constructs, cut through their DR with ease, and, at level 20, they even have a chance to automatically destroy a construct with a single blow. Not only was this archetype really solid and thematic, it was not something I expected to see. Construct killing paladins? I like it! The final ‘construct killing’ themed archetype was an arcanist archetype called the arcane tinkerer.

After reading the archetypes in this chapter, another theme became apparent: archetypes that can hijack or otherwise assume control of enemy constructs. Here you’ll find the construct collector occultist archetype, and the voice of Brigh bard archetype. The voice of Brigh was an interesting archetype. They have the ability to effect constructs with their bardic performances, which is very cool. But, most of it’s offensive performances have changed so that they only effect constructs. Essentially this means that you can use your bolstering music on allies of all kinds, including constructs, but that your hindering ones, like dirge of doom, fascinate, and frightening tune can only affect constructs. It’s a balanced trade if you’re going to be facing off against or allying with constructs on a regular basis, but otherwise is a rather large negative. However, their new bardic performance, Brigh’s Spark, allows them to reanimate a destroyed construct and force it to fight on your behalf. Each round they use this performance the construct regains more hp, and if it ever reaches full hp before they stop performing, it remains animated and under their control for 24 hours. So worth it!

I rather enjoyed the construct collector, as well, particularly because it gives up my least used of the occultist abilities for some cool new powers. They sacrifice magic circles, outside contact, binding circles, and fast circles, for the ability to temporarily halt a constructs destruction and control it for a turn (at the cost of some mental focus). At higher levels this ability’s duration is extended to a few rounds, and then a few minutes. They also gain the ability to harvest parts from broken constructs, which hold a point of generic focus. They can use the generic mental focus stored in these parts to fuel their focus powers on a one-for-one basis, which renders the parts useless. A nice touch!

The last few archetypes are much less focused and more easily used in a wide variety of games. The engineer is an investigator archetype that creates mechanisms that can aid them in a specific task for a few minutes. These mechanisms cost an inspiration point to create, grant the inspiration dice to the check it was made for throughout its duration, and can be shared with allies. They also gain a bonus on identifying constructs and on engineering checks. The scrapper is a fighter archetype that scavenges the parts from armour or broken constructs and uses them to augment their own armour. How much the makeshift modifications help and last depend on how powerful their source was. I found that archetype one of the most surprising I read! Really wasn’t expecting it, but I like it! Finally, there’s the wild effigy, a shifter archetype whose aspects and wild shape take on the appearance and consistency of stone instead of flesh and blood.

Chapter three is four pages of magic items, all with a very strong construct theme. It’s mostly golem manuals, but eight other magic items exist as well. I particularly like the chirurgeon cube and the oculus of magnetic fury.

Construct Handbook - Dragonhide Golem.JPG

Which brings us to our last and largest chapter: the bestiary. This thing is a forty three pages long, making it well over half the length of the book. In this chapter you’ll find fifteen new constructs and nine construct templates (each of which includes one sample stat block). Five of these constructs are a new intelligent kind of construct with ties to the Jistka Imperium, called an automaton. There’s also four new clockworks, three new robots, and three new golems. My favourite new constructs were the champion automatons (who can grab an enemy in their pincers and then whack another enemy with them! Hahaha! I love it!), clockwork songbird, dragonhide golem, and sand golem. My favourite construct templates include the energized golem, haunted construct, and recycled construct.

steam powered -clockwork dragon - construct handbook - graey erb — A steam powered clockwork dragon created using the new steam powered template with a clockwork dragon as the base creature. Illustrated by Graey Erb. Art courtesy of Paizo Inc.

Which brings us to the end of Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Construct Handbook. Overall I really enjoyed this book. It’s got some cool archetypes and a lot of awesome new enemies. New beasties for your players to battle against is always a great investment as a GM, so it was worth my money based on creatures alone. It’s an invaluable book for anyone who want to get into construct crafting. That said, it is very tight on its theme. Chances are if you’re a player who isn’t planning on crafting constructs or playing in a construct heavy campaign, you won’t find much of use in this book. It should be noted that although I’ll get the most use out of this book (as a GM), all of my family — my husband and my two young children — read this book and got inspired by the class archetypes. The three of them are now begging me to make them a construct themed campaign. (Do we not have enough campaigns?! Pretty sure we do!). I suppose it’s more use for players than I thought! Haha.

All in all, we’re happy to have this lovely little book on our shelf!

Do you own the Construct Handbook? Got some favourite creatures from it or stories about construct crafting you want to share? Let me know in the comments! I’d love to hear about it!

Jessica

Pathfinder Society Scenarios: Breath of the Dragonskull and Fragments of Antiquity

scourge of the farheavens - dolok darkfur - sebastian rodriguez — Dolok Darkfur from #9-18: Scourge of the Farheavens and #10-12: Breath of the Dragonskull. Illustrated by Sebastian Rodriguez. Art courtesy of Paizo Inc.

Pathfinder Society Scenario #10-12:Breath of the Dragonskull is a Tier 1-5 adventure written by Michael Sayre. It takes place in Iobaria, beginning in the Starrise Spire of Nerosyan, before quickly travelling to Mishkar and the Findabar Forest. It features creatures from Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary and Inner Sea Monster Codex (although all of the necessary stat blocks are included within the scenario) and includes content from the Core Rulebook, Advanced Class Guide, and Ultimate Equipment. It utilizes the Pathfinder Flip-Tiles: Forest Starter Set, Pathfinder Flip-tiles: Forest Perils Expansion, Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Forest Fire, and a custom half-page map.

This adventure tasks the PCs with protecting a caravan of Sarkorian refugees who are scheduled to begin a journey from Mishkar back to their long-lost homeland of Sarkoris (recently the Worldwound). The caravan has run into trouble with goblins, a forest fire, and centaurs, and need assistance so they can get underway. PCs will need to protect the caravan’s members, figure out what the heck is going on, and put a stop to it. Breath of the Dragonskull continues the storyline from #9-18: Scourge of the Farheavens, and features Dolok Darkfur and Nelket, with Jorsal of Lauterbury serving as Venture-Captain. This scenario involves a lot of interacting with the forest fire, so be sure to prepare your characters appropriately after the mission briefing. I loved the new characters introduced in this scenario — particularly Dragbog — and the various social encounters. There’s a lot of them, and they’re great fun. The battles are enjoyable and each is more complicated than it seems, which I was really happy to see. My only complaint is that if PCs manage to avoid some of the encounters (which they could), this scenario could pass by rather quickly. Overall I thought this was a really fun scenario. I can’t wait to run it for my family. I give it five out of five stars.

Kaana Korag by Tawny Fritz — Kaana Korag from #10-12: Breath of the Dragonskull. Illustrated by Tawny Fritz. Art courtesy of Paizo Inc.

Pathfinder Society Scenario #10-13: Fragments of Antiquity is a Tier 5-9 adventure written by Sam Polak that takes place in the Hao Jin Tapestry. It features creatures from Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary, Bestiary 4, and the Monster Codex (although all of the necessary stat blocks are included within the scenario) and contains content from the Core Rulebook, Advanced Player’s Guide, Planar Adventures, Ultimate Combat, and Ultimate Equipment. This scenario heavily utilizes Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Arcane Library. It also features Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Falls and Rapids, Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics: Forest (although it’s unlikely you’ll need to run the encounter that uses the Forest Flip-Mat), and a full-page custom map. This mission continues the ongoing Hao Jin Tapestry storyline. Players who can speak Tien will be a great boon during this scenario.

This adventure tasks the PCs with exploring a library within the Hao Jin Tapestry to collect important documents and clues related to the fate of Hao Jin. But, this isn’t as simple as it sounds. PCs will need to deal with kobolds, traps, and mysterious enemies during their mission, in addition to navigating the library. I thought the library location was interesting and atmospheric, but quite complex, so GMs will want to take some extra time to familiarize themselves with it thoroughly. I really enjoyed the interactions with the Scalebreaker kobolds, although they’re quite brief. Particularly canny PCs may be able to gain some extra insights that will be useful for them later on. This scenario is light on combat, but heavy on hazards, so it balances out quite nicely. The final battle in this scenario was very exciting and could prove to be quite challenging, particularly in the lower subtier. In the hands of a clever GM it would be a blast to play. Overall I enjoyed this scenario, particularly the brief interactions with the Scalebreakers, but it will take a solid GM to really make it shine. It’s not the easiest scenario to run. I give it four out of five stars.

Bridge-and-Logs by Tom Ventre — Bridge-and-Logs, Chieftain of the Scalebreakers from #10-13: Fragments of Antiquity. Illustrated by Tom Ventre. Art courtesy of Paizo Inc.

Thanks for joining me today! I hope you enjoyed taking a look at the new Pathfinder Society scenarios.

Jessica

Starfinder Society Scenarios: Survivor’s Salvation and Treading History’s Folly

Today we’re going to take a look at the two most recent Starfinder Society Scenarios that are currently available for purchase, and let you know we thought. Although you’ll find references to events in each that I liked or disliked, and comments about specific characters, these scenarios are not explored in detail. It’s not my intention to spoil the events in these scenarios, or give summaries and full reviews, but to share my opinions and provide recommendations. That said, if you want to avoid even minor spoilers I recommend you check out a different article. Whether you intend to use them in home games of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game, sanctioned scenarios for use with the Starfinder Society Organized Play, or just want to read a nifty new adventure, we’ve got you covered! So sit back, and get ready to explore the Pact Worlds!

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-30: Survivor’s Salvation is a Tier 1-4 adventure written by Kiel Howell. It takes place on Absalom Station, beginning in the Downlow District, then travelling to the Lorespire Complex (home of the Starfinder Society), and down to the Spike. This scenario does not contain starship combat. It features the Faction (Exo-Guardians) tag, and continues the ongoing Scoured Stars storyline, particularly the events of Scenario #1‑99: The Scoured Stars Invasion. Although playing #1-99 before this scenario is not necessary, doing so will lend more emotional weight to the events of this scenario. Survivor’s Salvation uses two custom half-page maps, and no flip-mats. In addition to the Starfinder Core Rulebook, this scenario features content from the Alien Archive, Alien Archive 2, Armory, and Pact Worlds. All necessary stat blocks are included in the scenario itself. If you happen to have any characters who are doctors, psychologists, healers, or particularly caring or empathic I highly recommend you bring them. This is a great scenario to role-play such characters. On the other hand, if you’ve got particularly blood-thirsty, insensitive, or mean PCs, I recommend you let them sit this one out, and bring a different character. This scenario touches on serious themes such as mental health, PTSD, and depression, so if you’re uncomfortable with such topics, you might want to give this scenario a pass. Finally, it should be noted that my kids (who are nearly seven and eight years old) would be freaked out by the final villain in this scenario. You have been warned! Haha.

Survivor’s Salvation begins in a warehouse that serves at the Exo-Guardians base of operations, which Starfinders who have played #1-01: The Commencement or #1-04: Cries from the Drift will recognize. There your players will have a brief chat with Zigvigix, leader of the Exo-Guardians. Ziggy informs the party that Hurondo, a high-ranking shobhad Starfinder who retired after being rescued from the Scoured Stars system, recently went missing. Hurondo runs a medical facility within the Lorespire Complex called Respite, which offers support and services to Starfinders who have suffered trauma. His disappearance has Ziggy worried, so they want you to investigate. At Ziggy’s request you can check out Respite, interview Hurondo’s co-workers and patients, and try to track the big fellow down. Because this is a mystery I won’t reveal too much more abut the plot than that. I will say that more than one life hangs in the balance. No pressure! Other than Zigvigix this scenario has no recurring characters. New characters of import introduced include Hurondo, Jiwalla Zarvim (a ysoki who works at Respite), Petine, Bygones-B, Quadrant-2, Orghuun, and Bargai (a deaf vlaka who I really enjoyed).

bargaibynicolasespinoza — Bargai, a deaf vlaka from Starfinder Society Scenario #1-30: Survivor’s Salvation. Illustrated by Nicolas Espinoza. Art courtesy of Paizo Inc.

Mental health is a touchy subject for some, and I thought this scenario did a wonderful job of shining a light on trauma, depression, post-traumatic stress, and other mental health issues, along with the stigma that can be associated with them, without being insensitive or preachy. You have plenty of opportunities as players to offer support to, gain insight from, and empathize with the various side characters throughout this scenario, all while fulfilling your mission objectives. In fact, the opening series of social encounters at and around Respite turned out to be one of my very favourite parts of the scenario. I also really enjoyed the tense social interactions with Bargai. The true villains of this scenario were exceptionally well-utilized, and I can’t wait to see what further events they could later be linked to. The final battle is quite dynamic, but to retain the element of surprise we won’t go into any more detail that that. Overall, I loved this scenario. It had a ton of engaging social interactions, interesting enemies, and a dynamic final encounter. It’s one of those scenarios where your actions clearly matter. I give it five out of five stars.

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-31: Treading History’s Folly is a Tier 3-6 adventure written by Vanessa Hoskins. It takes place on Kukanou-2b, a hot, toxic, shattered moon in the Vast that orbits the gas giant Kukanou. You’ll definitely need to use your armour’s environmental seals for this mission, so if you’re using a character who doesn’t have armour, buy some. This scenario features the Faction (Second Seekers [Jadnura]) tag and does not contain starship combat. It continues the ongoing Scoured Stars storyline — particularly Scenarios #1-11: In Pursuit of the Scoured Past, #1-13: On the Trail of History, #1-17: Reclaiming the Tome-Lost Tear, #1-23: Return to Sender, #1-99: The Scoured Stars Invasion, and #1-29: Honorbound Emissaries — although it does so in a completely different way than Survivor’s Salvation. It features a minor encounter that has ties to Scenario #1-24: Siege of Enlightenment and will have further connections to the upcoming Scenario #1-37: Siege of Civility. If you have any characters who have played Siege of Enlightenment I recommend bringing them along, but not at the expense of characters with ties to the Scoured Stars. Finally, characters who have the ‘Abysshead Download’ boon from Scenario #1-06: Night in Nightarch will need to endure an unfortunate surprise (which I enjoyed!). Treading History’s Folly makes use of Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Cavernous Lair and Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics: Village Square. In addition to the Starfinder Core Rulebook it contains content from the Alien Archive and Armory. It’s only recurring characters are First Seeker Jadnura (who was previously featured in Scenario #1-99: The Scoured Stars Invasion and #1-26: Truth of the Seeker) and Iteration-177 (who was previously featuring in Scenario #1-05: The First Mandate, #1-11: In Pursuit of the Scoured Stars, and #1-29: Honorbound Emissaries).

kadricalsymbolbygraeyerb — The symbol of Kadrical. Illustration by Graey Erb. Art courtesy of Paizo Inc.

Treading History’s Folly begins when the PCs accept a secret mission on behalf of First Seeker Jadnura. Wracked with guilt over his past decisions, which lead to many agents losing their lives in the Scoured Stars Incident, Jadnura is searching for meaning. He wants a team of reliable agents to visit the location where he originally found the Tear that lead him to discovering the Scoured Stars trinity system. Your PCs mission it to investigate the site and see if he missed anything that could have fortold the danger the system posed. It’s a fun adventure that features a few interesting social interactions, and plenty of traps, hazards, and enemies. My favourite part was the exploration of Xaharee. It’s a really cool, atmospheric location, that gives clever PCs the chance to learn a LOT about the Scoured Stars trinary system and the Tears. Although some of this information can be gleaned from previous scenarios, a lot of the information is brand new. Very cool! There’s also a surprisingly touching player hand-out, which I always enjoy. This scenario’s chronicle features two easy to acquire boons and some nice thematic gear for both sub-tiers. One of the boons is another segment of the mysterious ‘Journey to the Scoured Stars’ boon which doesn’t do anything right now but promises to do something in the future. The second boon is a really useful limited use ally boon. Overall, I really enjoyed this scenario. It was unique, atmospheric, and enlightening, I give it four out of five stars.

Haunted Earth Elemental by Graey Erb.jpg — An earth elemental haunted by the mentrasi from Starfinder Society Scenario #1-31: Treading History’s Folly. Illustration by Graey Erb. Art courtesy of Paizo Inc.

Thanks for joining me today. I hope you come to love these two solid Starfinder Society Scenarios as much I do. Be sure to come back later this week when we take a peek at the two newest Pathfinder Society Scenarios.

Jessica

Review: Endless Quest

I have always loved ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ books. Whenever I see one that my kids might like I let them give it a look-see or check it out from the library. Both of my kids enjoy them, particularly the ‘You Choose: Scooby-Doo‘ series. There’s plenty of others they’ve read. Choose your own adventure style books featuring Superman, Batman, the Justice League, LEGO® Batman, and even Pokemon (ReaderActive). And, of course, my son’s tried the official ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ books. My daughter’s too young to read them, and my son could, but he just doesn’t like reading small letters.

So this past holiday season when I realized that Dungeons and Dragons had put out a series of choose your own adventure style kids novels, I immediately looked them up online, put them on hold at my local bookstore, and took a trip out to pick them up. I stood there in the bookstore, opened them up, and was… IMPRESSED! They’re really high quality, with lots of cool artwork and a bigger sized font my son will be happy with. So I brought them home, wrapped them up, and that was that. When my son opened them he was amazed. Absolutely thrilled. He started reading them almost right away.

blog endless quest spread After about ten minutes he stopped and said: “Mom, I just died. Actually DIED! This is… This is… This book is dangerous! Poisoned mushrooms killed me!”

I laughed and he went on reading.

“Okay, now I got squished by a giant!”

Which got me thinking. Death was a pretty common occurrence in the ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ series of books I read as a kid. So was failure. But in the ‘choose your own’ books my kids have read? Not a thing that happens. Batman doesn’t die. Superman doesn’t die. Scooby-Doo doesn’t die (okay, once Fred dies). Ash obviously doesn’t die, either. Not every ending is a ‘win’ — although most are — but losing isn’t quite so final.

I watched my son for a while, curious if he would get frustrated and put the books down.

He didn’t.

He read them, read them again, and read them a few more times. Then he moved onto a different one. In the weeks since he’s read them all a lot. Finally, just yesterday, he let me pick them up and give them a read myself. Now, I’m a bit of a completionist when it comes to this style of book. I read through the way I want to, then go back and try out the different options, then go back further and do the same again, and again, until I’ve got to experience most (if not all) of the book within a day or so.

And you know what I’ve come to realize?

My son makes horrible decisions! Hahaha. It’s not that there’s no way to ‘win,’ because there is. There’s plenty of ways to lose but survive, as well. But my son? Nope! He dies every time.

Curious, my daughter gave one a try. It was ‘Into the Jungle,’ one of the books that has a lot of ways to die, a lot of ways to survive, but I hadn’t yet found the ‘perfect ending’ where you live and achieve all your objectives. So, there was my daughter, sitting there and reading the book aloud. It took her a while, since the books are a bit above her reading level. But an hour or so later she smiled, put down the book, and said: “That was good.” I sat down beside her to see how her story had ended. Much to my surprise she had found the ‘perfect ending.’ Hahaha. My son was so jealous! Heck, I was jealous!

We’ve had a ton of fun with these books. So, today we’re shining a light on them and spreading the word!

blig endless quest spread 2 Endless Quest is a series of four ‘choose your own adventure’ style novels aimed at middle-grade readers (eight to twelve year olds, although my kids are six and seven years old and both enjoyed them). Written by Matt Forbeck, each official Dungeons and Dragons book casts you in the role of a different class. Endless Quest: To Catch a Thief lets your kids (or you!) be a female halfling rogue, Endless Quest: Into the Jungle casts you in the role of a male dwarf cleric, Endless Quest: Escape the Underdark lets you play as a male human fighter, and Endless Quest: Big Trouble lets you play as an female elf wizard. While reading the book your character’s gender has no bearing on perspective or story. It’s invisible, honestly. Only the image on the front reveals your gender. Which is awesome! Both of my kids immediately assumed the character was just like them, irrelevant of the cover image, slipping into the role without hesitation.

Each softcover book is exactly 122 pages long. Most of the pages are filled completely with text and images (no wasted pages here!), and both of my kids found the font size comfortable. All of the books contain a lot of awesome artwork. Some images are in full colour — typically locations or a main character/villain — while the rest are in sepia tones. You’ll find images of allies, enemies, items, equipment, maps, scenery, and locations. Some of the images are even tactical maps, which everyone in the house enjoyed examining. Two of the images are on the gory side (a zombie with his insides hanging out from ‘Into the Jungle‘, and a grotesque female hill giant devouring hunks of questionable pink meat from ‘Big Trouble‘). Each of the books follows a different kind of story, features different main characters with unique motivations and personality traits, involves different situations and enemies, and takes place in vastly different locations. You’ll get to visit actual places from the Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting, both on a large and small scale, which fans of D&D will love. Each book also has cameos from known D&D personalities (including Elminster, Volo, and Xanathar, to name a few). The decisions you get to make are important. Common choices include deciding which way to go, how you choose to deal with other characters, and how you react to situations. Each of the books has ways to ‘win,’ to happily survive but fail, to survive but fail horribly, and to die. The number of these outcomes varies between each book, with the most deadly having about half of its endings fatal. None of the deaths are graphic, and many are suggested more than described. Some of the endings are quite abrupt, and if you make poor decisions right from the start your story could be over in only a few pages. But, that’s to be expected in books of this kind. My biggest complaint? Names! A lot of characters and places have difficult to pronounce names which the vast majority of kids will just skip over instead of bothering to sound out. Some of them I even stumbled over on first glance. For my kids? Those words are just Sli-jibberjabber or Nya-somethingsomething. Also? Battle is nearly always fatal. Fair! But, at the same time, battle is a big part of RPGs, and some of these characters — the cleric and the fighter particularly — seem like they should be capable combatants. That they die so easily and so often in a fight is a little jarring. For me, anyway. My kids didn’t mind too much.

It should also be noted that these books very often intersect with other D&D books and products. Two books directly mention Volo’s Guide to Monsters and one mentions the kids book Dungeonology (also penned in lore by the infamous Volo). Characters and events from some of the other books also connect to major campaigns, as noted below. My kids and I thought this was awesome! But, not all parents will. Particuarly if it makes your kids want those (pricy) books. Haha.

So what exactly are these books?

EndlessQuest_ProductImage_Cleric_full — Take on the role of a dwarf cleric in Endless Quest: Into the Jungle by Matt Forbeck.

My son’s favourite book was ‘Into the Jungle,’ which lets you play as a male dwarf cleric of the god Clangeddin Silverbeard, the dwarven god of honourable battle. Your character was given a mission by the Harpers, to track down an ex-member of their order by the name of Artus Cimber and retrieve a powerful magical ring that is in his possession, the Ring of Winter. In the wrong hands this ring could bring about an eternal winter, and the Harpers want the ring to remain in their possession. Artus has disappeared in the jungles of Chult, and its up to you to track him down, retrieve the ring, and bring it back. This was the most deadly of the books, with only one ‘perfect ending’ (which my daughter discovered on her first try), a heavy amount of ‘survive but fail’ (only two of which have a happy tone), and a whole lot of fatal endings. Despite its lethality, both of my kids adored it. There’s a pair of lovable characters you can befriend (Qawasha the druid and Kupalué the friendly vegepygmy), a wide variety of exciting locations to explore (from dinosaur races to ancient ruins), tons of cool enemies to encounter (including a stone golem, froghemoth, zombie tyrannosaurs rex, green hag, and the witch Nanny Pu’Pu), and a variety of interesting races to interact with (like pterafolk, grungs, aarakocra, and goblins). Famous cameos include Volo, the Harpers, Artus Cimber, and the Red Wizards of Thay. The majority of the book deals with the hazards of the jungle, and the undead which are rampant throughout it — particularly zombies. My son’s favourite part of the book was the variety of cool places you visit, and a timely rescue from stone golems by an aarakocra (eagle-people). My daughter’s favourite part was when she read the book for the second time and was killed by eating a tasty (but poisonous) dinner with a tribe of adorable grungs (humanoid poisonous tree-frogs). My favourite part? Your side-kicks! Qawasha and Kupalué are wonderful guides and great fun. As an added bonus, certain circumstances can make them turn against you, which gives your decisions extra weight. There’s also a series of lovely interactions with the witch Nanny Pu’Pu which will force you to choose between your morals and survival. Your character will then have to deal with the ramifications of that decision. Awesome! The downsides? I found that the main character doubts his faith a lot. He’s he’s in a bad situation he often wonders why his god is displeased with him or has abandoned him. Now, I’m not saying it’s not alright to have a crisis of faith, but he has them a LOT, which is a strange character trait to give a devoted cleric. My other complaint? As previously mentioned, if you get into a fight chances are you lose. Which is unfortunate when you’re playing a cleric who gets to fight against undead and worships a god of honourable battle. That’s not to say he never wins a fight — cause he does. It just doesn’t often happen. I’m totally fine with him dying against a stone golem, or a froghemoth, or a swarm of pterafolk who drop him to his death. But against a few zombies? Or a few goblin and some zombies? It makes him feel a little lame. Overall, we all really enjoyed ‘Into the Jungle.’ My kids loved it most and both give it a rating of “Awesome,” while I really enjoyed it. The characters and events in this book are tightly intertwined with the Tomb of Annihilation campaign and Board Game. Artus Cimber also appears in the books Realms of Valor: The Family Business, and The Ring of Winter (which I can’t seem to find available online, but I could find as an audio book).

EndlessQuest_ProductImage_Fighter_full — Take on the role of a human fighter in Endless Quest: Escape the Underdark by Matt Forbeck.

The second most-deadly of the Endless Quest books is ‘Escape the Underdark.’ In this book you play as a male human fighter who is captured by drow. You begin the book by waking up in a prison cell (classic!) alongside a motley crew of other prisoners. It’s up to you to escape or die trying! But, as you’ll soon learn, escaping isn’t the hardest part. Getting back to the surface alive is. Depending on your choices you’ll get to face off against a wide variety of underground hazards and enemies. Much to my surprise the fighter can make a lot of allies. In addition to the other prisoners you start the book alongside, you can befriend myconids, and ally with an opportunistic kuo-toa, duergar, a dangerous red dragon, and even an intelligent gelatinous cube named Glabbagool. My favourite of your allies are a pair of quirky goblins named Spiderbait and Yuk Yuk. They were both adorable and hilarious. I love them! The locations you visit are surprisingly varied, including cities, underground lakes, and even a crevasse filled with spider webs that acts as a kind of highway for adventuresome locals. In addition to the prison located in Velkynvelve, which is where you start the book, you can travel to the famous drow city of Menzoberranzan and the duergar city of Gracklstugh. Although Menzoberranzan has no happy endings, visiting the duergar can lead to a variety of adventure, some of which can lead to back to the surface. There’s plenty of foes for you to face off against, although nearly every single fight you get yourself into will end in death (even more so than the cleric) which is an odd choice since your playing as a FIGHTER. You’ll need to rely on your wits more than your fists. The most terrifying foe you encounter? Demogorgon. Yup! The demon lord himself! Yikes! Despite its lethality, this was my favourite of the Endless Quest books. The large cast of characters is a lot of fun to interact with and, if I’m being honest, I’ve always been a sucker for drow. It also has some of the most satisfying endings out of the Endless Quest books. Even some of the deaths and failures where you never escape the Underdark are surprisingly satisfying. It was great fun. This book, its overarching events, and its characters are intertwined with the D&D campaign Out of the Abyss and the Rage of Demons storyline.

EndlessQuest_ProductImage_Rogue_full — Take on the role of a halfling rogue in Endless Quest: To Catch a Thief by Matt Forbeck.

Next up is ‘To Catch a Thief‘ which places you in the role of a female halfling rogue who picks the wrong pocket! After being caught by Lord Laeral Silverhand, the Open Hand of Waterdeep and a contingent of the City Watch you’ll need to use to wits to escape jail time. This will lead you to either trying to flee or taking on a dangerous task for Lord Silverhand. Recently her pet griffin was stolen by the Thieve’s Guild and she wants you to retrieve it for her. Sound easy? Not so! The Thieve’s Guild is incredibly powerful and far-reaching. It’s leader, The Xanathar, is a powerful beholder. Not someone to trifle with! Stuck in an impossible situation, its your wits, adaptability, and shifting allegiances that will see you out of this whole. That and fleeing! Running away is a common ending in this one, and you often have the chance to abandon your mission — whatever it may be at the moment — and skip town. Which is awesome, actually! Very in character for a rogue. I also really enjoyed that you have plenty of chances to change sides, trick, and betray someone. This book takes place in both the city of Waterdeep, and the underground city of Skullport. You get to visit some famous places, and interact with a few well-known characters. You may also get to disguise yourself as some famous characters including Marune the Masked, and the infamous Drizzt Do’Urden. Surprisingly, the wily rogue manages to survive most of the fights you can get into, and dies rarely. Most often she survives by fleeing, but sometimes finds herself beholden to one faction or another. Likely for life. It’s probably that however you ‘win’ this book you’ll make enemies, meaning even victory can be dangerous. By far the most satisfying endings involve rescuing the griffon, which lets you take on the role of hero. But that’s not necessary. Not everyone wants to tangle with a beholder, after all. Another wonderful ending involves saving a group of slaves from their bugbear kidnappers and leaving town with them. Other than a beholder, bugbears slavers, and bandits and thieves of all kinds, you can also face off against pirates, assassins, thugs, guards, a demilich, and even start a bar brawl! Lots of danger in this one! All in all, my kids liked this book least (although they still enjoyed it a lot) due to the lack of scenery changes. You’re in a city and you might move to another city. Not much in the way of far-flung and exotic locations, here. However, it was my second favourite of the Endless Quest books. I thought it was lots of fun. Waterdeep, Undermountain, and Skullport are the main locations in a variety of adventures, including Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage, and Tales From the Yawning Portal.

EndlessQuest_ProductImage_Wizard_full — Take on the role of an elf wizard in Endless Quest: Big Trouble by Matt Forbeck.

Finally, we have ‘Big Trouble.’ This is both the least lethal, but the saddest of the books. In it you take on the role of a female elf wizard whose home is attacked by an army of hill giants. During the attack you’re told to take your younger brother and flee, though whether you listen to that sound advice is entirely up to you. Although its possible you get out with your brother, it’s most likely you end up alone. Lost and worried about your family you set out on a quest to find them and bring them home. Along the way you (very likely) meet up with a cloud giant wizard named Zephyros who travels around in a flying tower and is a friend of your parents. With his help you can choose to track down either your father, or your mother and brother. Both choices lead you on a variety of adventures to some far flung locations. The quest for your father can take you to the Eye of the All-Father in the frozen north and pit you against bandits, giants, a blue dragon, and a dragon cult. The quest for your mother and brother will lead you to Grudd Haug, a hill giant settlement where they have been taken prisoner by the disgusting Guh, a female hill giant that believes if she is the fattest hill giant her gods will give her their blessings. She’s gross. There’s plenty of ways for things to go awry on your journey, and a surprisingly large number of ways you can rescue some of your family. However, there are no endings where you can rescue everyone. You might save your brother, or your mother, or your father, or your mother and brother — or no one — but you can never save them all. That means that even the happy endings are bittersweet. Surprisingly, this determined wizard gets into a lot of fights throughout the book, and can even take down (or help take down) some very powerful enemies with low-level magic. She proves that even the young and inexperienced can make a difference. This was a really wonderful, welcome change from the previous books, which often end with you dying in such circumstances. It was also really unexpected. Some important locations you can visit in this book include Ardeep Forest, the Eye of the All-Father, and Grudd Haug, and some famous characters include Harshnag, Claugiyliamatar, Zephyros, and the infamous wizard Elminster! Events and characters in this book directly intersect with the Storm King’s Thunder campaign. Some of the characters can also be found in the old Heroes’ Lorebook, and the old City of Splendors: Waterdeep. Elminster, of course, can be found in a LOT. It was a lot of fun!

Both my kids and I really enjoyed the Endless Quests books. I highly recommend them for any kids who have an interest in fantasy novels, adventure novels, choose your own adventures, or tabletop RPGs. They’re engaging, variable, and a ton of fun. Fans of D&D will particularly enjoy all the famous places you can visit and people you can meet. Best of all? Each one is very different.

Well done, Matt Forbeck! My family is sending you a round of applause for writing these delightful kids novels!

As for everyone else? I hope some of you have the chance to share these books with the kids in your life. They’re great fun and well-worth the money.

Jessica.

blog endless quest stack

Tails of Equestria: The Storytelling Game

Quite a few months ago a fellow gamer recommended my family give Tails of Equestria: Storytelling Game a try. I looked into the game, and told my daughter and son all about it. They were extremely excited. The problem?

Finding it.

Although I was able to find a copy of the rulebook on some American and European retailers websites, I could not find this RPG in Canada. None of the local game shops had it, Amazon had only German language copies in stock, and Indigo was sold out completely. We’ve been keeping our eyes open in the months since and, although I did see a copy turn up once or twice, it was never for long (or affordable!).

And then Christmas came. My daughter, in a stroke of brilliance, asked our only relatives that live in the States for My Little Pony: Tails of Equestria: Storytelling Game for Christmas. She typed out the title of the book she needed to play, and then all of the other supplement books she wanted, and assured me that YES, she would definitely be happy with a big pile of books as a Christmas gift, and YES, she was sure that’s what she wanted.

Grandma and Grandpa came to the rescue. This past Christmas my daughter opened up not one, but three RPG books. My Little Pony: Tails of Equestria: Storytelling Game (which is the Core Rulebook and essentially all you need to play), Tails of Equestria: The Festival of Lights (which is a published adventure), and Tails of Equestria: The Storytelling Game Starter Set (which contains an adventure, dice, and all kinds of accessories).

My daughter was thrilled. So was my son. And honestly? So was I. I had heard wonderful things about this game and, although it wouldn’t become my favourite game anytime soon, it looked like a ton of fun. Definitely something my kids would enjoy.

After squealing in glee and obsessing over some of the cool pictures inside she put down the books and moved on with the rest of the holidays. She tried out new toys and video games. We learned how to play our new board games. And at the end of that first weekend after Christmas she held up her books and gave me a big grin.

“Will you read this with me now, Momma?”

I was about to head out for a trip to the laundromat, so it wasn’t exactly the ideal time. But, I’ve never been one to say no to a kid with a book, so I put aside all the work I was going to bring with me and packed up my kids and our hardcover book instead. Clothes in the wash and water bottle in hand — reading an entire RPG core rulebook aloud is thirsty work! — we settled in to learn a new d20 game together.

my litte pony tails of equestria storytelling game

The book is bright, colourful, and engaging. It’s simple to understand but doesn’t talk down to you. It is perfectly written for its audience. Seriously. My daughter is in grade one and not only did she follow along with everything I was reading to her (and pay attention!), she understood the game and its rules immediately. I never had to stop and explain anything further than the book already had. I never had to give her an easy example to illustrate a rule. Nothing. She listened and understood. My son, who is only a year older than her, could have read the entire book by himself and understood it. In fact, my daughter probably could have read it herself too, but that’s not typical for kids her age (both of my kids are very strong readers). We weren’t done the rulebook by the time we were done at the laundromat, but after we got home my daughter sat down beside me on the couch and we finished it. Cover to cover in few hours. She was practically bouncing in excitement.

“Can we make our characters now?”

So we printed off some fancy character sheets, called over my son, and got creating! The entire process took us around an hour, which included drawing and colouring our ponies. Follow-up ponies we made took much less. About fifteen minutes from start to finish.

We were ready to play!

…sort of. We still had to convince my husband to make a character so he could join in on the game. Haha. I’ll share more details about our first gameplay experience in an upcoming blog post later this month, but for now, we’re going to talk about the rulebook itself. Interested? Read on!

Tails of Equestria: Storytelling Game is an easy to understand pen and paper roleplaying game featuring the world and characters of the hit TV show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. The game is aimed at children, but is definitely fun for the whole family. A hardcover book 151 pages in length, this tome is packed full of artwork, and is written in an easy to read font (and font size). Licensed by Hasbro, published by River Horse Games (in Europe) and Shinobi 7 (in the USA and Canada), and written by Alessio Cavatore, Dylan Owen, and Jack Caesar, this book’s suggested retail price is 25 pounds, 30 Euros, 35 American dollars, or 40 Canadian dollars. Of course, that cost will vary a lot depending where you pick it up. I found forty five is more typical online in Canada (if you manage to find a copy in stock at all). The book is sturdy and well made — a must have for kids books! The front cover features an image of the three iconic Tails of Equestria ponies navigating the wilds with a castle in the background. Firebrand, the iconic unicorn takes the lead, with Thrilly Filly the pegasus flying above, and Strong Oak the armoured earth pony alert at the back of the group. My kids love the art, which is drawn by Amy Mebberson, but its the back of the book that really shines for me.

I remember when I was in junior high there was a Chapters nearby that I went to constantly. On one visit I passed by the Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook and stopped in my tracks. I picked it up and flipped through it. I knew in my gut I wanted it, but I had no idea what it was. None. Eventually I put it back and moved on. Every visit afterwards I passed by that book and picked it up. But I never bought it. Not until many years later when someone actually explained to me what the heck D&D was. By then the book store wasn’t even open anymore. I would have liked to buy it from there. But this? This book doesn’t have that problem. Right there on the back cover it explains what this book is, how you use it, and what it’s for. It’s written in simple language that any kid or parent (or grandparent!) can understand. It’s simple, clear, and concise. I love it.

Seriously.

I love it so much I’m going to let you read it for yourself.

“What is this book?

Hey there! So I imagine you’ve picked up this book knowing a little bit about My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. You’ve probably had a quick flick through the book and are wondering exactly what it is.

This book is a manual for a storytelling game, which allows you and your friends to create your very own pony characters to explore the amazing and magical world of Equestria — will you be a dynamic adventurer like Daring Do or a bold treasure hunter like Rarity?

Wait, wait, wait! You said this is a game, but this is clearly a book!

You’re right, but it’s actually both a book and a game. This book contains rules and a story. Rules that will tell you how to make a strong, clever, or charming pony. A story that you and your friends will enjoy, where the choices you make will change the story itself until you are telling the story as much as the book or the GM.

GM… what is that?

A GM (gamemaster) is a player at the table, but instead of playing as a pony, he or she will play as a storyteller, impersonating all of the ponies you meet, the beasts you face, and the challenges you have to overcome. Think of the GM as a narrator in a movie — it is his or her role to tell the players exactly what is happening in the story and what the outcomes of their actions are, depending on their choices.

Cool! How do I win?

Winning a storytelling game is very easy; you just need to have fun! Tails of Equestria is not about getting to the end of the board or having the most points, but all about having fantastical adventures and using the magic of friendship to overcome any obstacle that stands in your way, You and your friends, including the GM, are all on the same team — as long as everypony is having fun, everybody wins!

So open up Tails of Equestria and be prepared to enter a world of magic and friendship.”

See what I mean? Simple, approachable, and understandable. This isn’t just a book for RPG gamers. In fact, most of the kids who pick up this book won’t have played a pen and paper RPG at all. This is a book that can guide kids to becoming RPG gamers in a way that’s fun, cool, and tailored to them. It’s really well done.

Tails of Equestria: Storytelling Game is split into fourteen sections: twelve chapters, an adventure module, and the appendix. The chapters are each colour coded, which makes the book super easy to navigate and has the added bonus of making it look like a pleasant rainbow. Even better, the chapters are well ordered. One naturally progresses into the other in a way that just makes sense. It’s perfect.

The book starts off by explaining what a roleplaying game is, how to play them, what you need to play, what kind of dice the game uses, and some other supplemental material that some people like to use but isn’t mandatory. It mentions other Tails of Equestria products (like dice sets, gaming screens, and ‘tokens of friendship’), but also offers free solutions. It suggests using beads, buttons, and other small objects as ‘tokens of friendship’ and recommends free dice rolling apps. It also has dice charts in the back of the book so that all you need to do is flip to the proper chart, close your eyes, and point, to figure out what you’ve rolled. Offering these free alternative options in a way that makes it seem normal and acceptable is really important. Parents don’t want to be shelling out a ton of money after already having paid for a rulebook. Also, kids who do use buttons and the dice chart don’t need to feel like they’re left out or ‘making due.’ It makes it clear that you don’t need fancy supplies. You just need this one book. There’s also a short section intended for parents, which explains some of the benefits of roleplaying games.

Tails of Equestria: The Storytelling Game then moves on to character creation, which takes up the majority of the book. The first thing you need is a character sheet. One is provided in the back of the book, which you can photocopy. You can also go here to download a variety of character sheets for free. They have blank sheets and ones with male and female ponies, pegasus, and unicorns pre-outlined. My whole family loves those ones, so I highly suggest you give them a gander. Once you’ve got your pony sheet ready you need to choose your pony type.

my litte pony tails of equestria the storytelling game character sheet

Players can choose to be an earth pony, pegasus, or unicorn. Earth ponies are hardy and strong. They gain the stout heart trait, which allows them to really push themselves to accomplish a physical task once a day. They also have higher Stamina (which is your hp) than the other pony types. Pegasus and Unicorns are less hardy than earth ponies, but have special abilities of their own. Unicorns can use magic. They begin the game with telekinesis and can make their horns glow. As they level up you can select more magical powers with them (if you want) such as force fields, stun rays, and teleportation. Pegasus can fly and walk on clouds. As they level up you can even learn to control the weather. There is a fourth type of pony in My Little Pony, the alicorn, but it’s off limits to players. Although kids will likely be a bit sad about that, the book explains quite clearly why, which was more than enough reason for my kids. After all, only Princesses of Equestria can be alicorns, and those thrones are all currently taken.

Once you know what kind of pony you want to use you write down your level, which is one. Then you select your Element of Harmony. This doesn’t have a mechanical effect. It acts more like a a guide to help you and your fellow players know what personality trait your character is most tied to. The Elements of Harmony are generosity, honesty, kindness, laughter, loyalty, and magic (which is a balance of all of the others). Once you’ve chosen your Element of Harmony you allocate your statistics.

Before we get into that, though, let me give you a little context about how this game works. Every pony has three main statistics: Body, Mind, and Charm. Each of these statistics will have a dice type associated with it. In this game your lowest statistic and traits will use a d4, but will increase as you level up, moving on to a d6, d8, d10, and so on. Low dice are bad, and high dice are good. Simple.

If you come across an obstacle — things like kicking down a door, untying a knot, or climbing a cliff — this is called a Test. Your GM selects the Test’s difficulty from a simple chart. Then the players roll a dice for the stat most applicable. Kicking down a door or climbing a cliff would be a Body check, discovering a clue or solving a riddle would be a Mind check, and making friends or telling a joke would be a Charm check. If you beat the DC you pass and if you’re under the DC you fail.

If you happen to have a skill that could also apply to whatever you’re trying to do, like bucking to kick down a door, or keen knowledge (geography) to find your way in the wilds, you get to roll that dice also and keep the better result. For example, if a pony with a Body d4 and Bucking d6 wants to kick down a door, they roll both a d4 and a d6, then they choose which die result they want to keep.

If you’re making a check against a different pony or an opponent, this is instead a Challenge. Examples of this include a baking competition, a race, or a debate. In this case the ponies and opponents involved roll the appropriate dice and the highest outcome is the winner.

Battles are a special type of challenge called a Scuffle. This works just like a regular challenge, except that the loser loses an amount of Stamina equal to the score rolled by the winner. So, if a pegasus and a timberwolf get into a scuffle, they each roll a Body check. If either of them has an additional trait that would be useful they roll that as well and keep the better of their rolls. If the pegasus rolled a 4 and the timber wolf rolled a 6, the timberwolf has won the round and the pegasus loses six Stamina. When you start the game your ponies will have either 10 or 12 Stamina, so battles tend to pass quick. Its a fun and simple way to handle combat. However, it should be noted that scuffles aren’t a major part of Tails of Equestria. Its much more likely ponies will avoid combat with clever roleplaying, creative thinking, and teamwork.

There’s a bit more to rolling than that. Rolling a 1 results in an automatic fail and is called Bad Luck. Beating a Test by double its difficulty is called an Amazing Success, and means something wonderful happens. Rolling maximum on your dice is called an Exploding Hoof and allows you to immediately roll on a dice one step higher (from d4, to d6, to d8, and so on). If you roll higher than your previous roll you can use the higher result, otherwise you keep your previous die roll. And if you roll maximum again? You go up another dice step and keep going. These all turned out to be fun additions to the game. My kids particularly enjoyed the Exploding Hooves. Haha.

Now that we’ve got the basics covered we can jump back into character creation.

All ponies begin with a d6 in Charm (which is your social statistic). Then you get to allocate a d4 and a d6 to the other two stats, which are Body (the physical trait) and Mind (your mental stat). Smart and clever ponies will want to put their d6 into Mind and their d4 into Body, while tough or nimble ponies will want to put the d6 into Body and the d4 into Mind. Earth ponies are a special exception and instead count their Body as one dice type higher, meaning an earth pony’s starting statistics will either be Body (d8), Mind (d4), Charm (d6) for strong ponies, or Body (d6), Mind (d6), Charm (d6) for brainy ponies.

Once you’ve chosen your statistics you calculate your Stamina. This acts as your hp, and is the sum of your Body and Mind stats. This means that pegasus and unicorns will have 10 Stamina to start with, while earth ponies will have 12. Failing Tests, Challenges, and Scuffles can lower your Stamina, as can lack of sleep or a poor diet. You can recover Stamina by resting, eating a good meal, or using Ponybalm (which is like a healing potion).

Now its time to select your Talents, which are sort of feats, special abilities, and skills all rolled into one. Each pony type starts with their own Talent. Earth ponies have Stout Heart (d6), pegasus have Fly (d6), and unicorns have Telekinesis (d6). At level one you also get to select one other Talent from a list, which is tied to your Cutie Mark and is your specialty. This Talent should be a huge part of your character and shape their outlook, personality, name, and so on. There’s a decent sized list of Talents to choose from, many of which have an unlimited number of subtypes. Keen Knowledge, for example, is knowing a lot about a specific topic, but what topic is entirely up to you. Similarly, Creative Flair is something creative that you’re particularly good at, such as baking, comedy, or painting, and Special Skill is something physical that you’re talented in, like bucking, gymnastics, or sneaking. Other Talents are more specific. Healing Touch, which was my personal favourite, allows you to heal an ally, while the Stare allows you to fascinate or command someone to do something. Finally, some talents can only be taken by a specific type of pony. Only unicorns can use magic, for example, and only pegasus can fly. Although the list is nice and allows for a lot of variance between characters, I found myself wishing it was a little longer. Fortunately it’s mentioned that players hoping to create something not on the list can do so with approval from their GM. Although my family has made a few ponies already, we haven’t had the need to do this yet. So far the written Talents have been more than enough.

Whichever Talent you select at level one begins at a d6. Throughout the game you’ll have the chance to upgrade the dice types of your various Talents, and learn more. Any Talents learned later begin as d4s though, so choose wisely.

Once you’ve decided on your Talents you get to pick out a Quirk, which is a character flaw. Again, there’s a decent array of options and, again, I found myself wishing there were more. Fortunately, some of them can be incredibly varied. Fear, for example, is a fear of a specific thing (like spiders or heights). Allergies and Oooohhh… Shiny! are equally variable. The others, such as asthma, blunt, messy, and overconfident are much more specific. Again, as with Talents, players have the freedom to create their own Quirks with GM approval. So why would your pony want a flaw, anyway? Quirks will influence your character’s personality and make them unique. It gives kids something fun and often comical to role-play, and teaches us that no one is perfect. But it has an in game effect as well. Every time your ponies face their fears they get rewarded by the GM. My kids loved this and really embraced their ponies Quirks. It turned out to be a lot of fun.

By now your pony is nearly complete. You’ll need to design their Cutie Mark, draw your pony, and give them a name. Some of the ponies my family created included Soothing Heart the over-prepared earth pony mother, Flying Recall the mystery solving pegasus with a sixth sense for trouble, Bunna the stuffed animal seamstress unicorn who can talk to animals, Nugget the unicorn artist who hopes to draw every magical creature in existence, and Thunderhoof the kung-fu fighting earth pony who wants to be an action star. All in all, this game allows you to make unique ponies with only a short amount of work. It’s a fun, streamlined process that everyone enjoyed.

What’s left? Gear. Now, most ponies don’t need to pick up any gear to start. But some, such as adventuresome ponies or those who have a goal or job in mind, will want to spend some of their money — called Bits — on gear before they begin the game. There’s a solid list of equipment you can purchase in the game, with enough variability that nearly all characters should find the things they need (or a similar item whose cost they can use). Whether you decide to spend your bits or not, each pony begins with 400 bits. In between adventures your ponies can earn 200 bits per month plus or minus d20 bits, as determined by the GM. All in all we found that bits and gear were a nice and important addition, but not integral to gameplay.

Finally, players determine how many ‘Tokens of Friendship’ they begin the game with. These are special crystals (or beads, buttons, and so on) which you can use to reroll dice, automatically pass a failed roll, or slightly change the storyline (depending on how many you spend). You begin the game with Tokens of Friendship equal to the number of people you are playing with (including the GM). You also gain more at each level up. If you decide to use your tokens to help out someone else, you reduce the cost of spending Tokens of Friendship. In very rare circumstances, players and characters who are particularly kind can also be gifted a bonus Token of Friendship by the GM. We found that this was a really fun aspect of gameplay that everyone got into the spirit of.

As you adventure your characters will learn and grow. Tails of Equestria does away with experience points, instead allowing ponies to level up after every adventure — or in between sessions if an adventure is particularly long. When a pony gains a level they increase one of their Statistics (Body, Mind, or Charm) by one die type (a d4 becomes a d6, a d6 becomes a d8, and so on). If they choose to increase Body or Mind this also creases their Stamina accordingly. For every Talent that you used in the previous adventure you increase it by one die type as well. Then you either select one Talent you didn’t have a chance to use and increase it by one die type, or you select a new Talent to gain at d4. Finally, your characters gain a number of Tokens of Friendship equal to the number of players (including the GM) who participated in the last adventure. very rarely you can select a new Quirk if you want, but it has to be for something that happened during your adventure, and each pony should do this only once or twice. For example, if your earth pony fell in a pit full of snakes and you role-played them being horrified by the events they might take the Quirk fear (snakes). This approach is simple and easy to understand, but you’ll soon see your PCs all branching off in different directions the more they level up.

With character creation and the basics of the game out of the way, Tails of Equestria: The Storytelling Game goes on to further explain gameplay for players and GMs. Which should bring us to the end.

Only it’s not the end!

This book also comes with an adventure for first level characters called The Pet Predicament. I cannot express how happy I was to discover this. Particularly after I read it! It is honestly the perfect start adventure for this game. And, it’s not a short or cheap adventure, either! It’s forty pages in length if you count the stat blocks it comes with. It took my family two sessions to play through, though my kids were so engrossed they wanted to play it in one. But, alas! It was bedtime. Haha.

my litte pony tails of equestria the storytelling game in game

In a practical sense, this adventure is incredibly important. It provides a first adventure for players to use, and teaches them how a game should be run by example. For experienced players it also serves to alter our preconceptions about RPGs, and really shake things up. That’s because Tails of Equestria isn’t the same kind of RPG as Pathfinder or D&D. It downplays battle, and really encourages players to use creative thinking, kindness, teamwork, and roleplaying to overcome obstacles. This game requires a different mindset than other RPGs. Happily it’s a mindset that kids and young players will naturally settle into and flourish. I honestly cannot be happier with how this game played.

So what is the Pet Predicament? I mentioned it was the perfect starter adventure for this game and I meant it. It’s well written, engaging, and fun. There’s plenty of opportunity for Scuffles, but just as many chances for players to completely avoid Scuffles with Tests an Challenges. It features the Mane Six (main characters) from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic as initial NPCs, and leaves the PCs as their pet-sitters. Any kids who has seen the show will be absolutely thrilled at this turn of events. Getting to meet such famous characters is enough to make many kids squeal in glee, and finding themselves the caretakers of all six of their pets? I’ve never met a kid who doesn’t love animals! Both my son and daughter got super into this adventure. They did their best to take care of the animals, feed them their favourite things, pamper and play with them, and so on. Unfortunately for your pet-sitters, not all of the pets are well behaved. Fluttershy’s rabbit, Angel, is a menace (as fans of the show will know!). My daughter, who adores rabbits, had a ton of fun dealing with the fluffy little terror. But, like all good adventures, something goes wrong. And this time? There’s definitely a rabbit to blame! The pets soon get lost in the dangerous and spooky Everfree Forest, and its up to your PCs to rescue all the pets, brings them back to Fluttershy’s cottage, and clean up. Their adventures will present them with all kinds of obstacles, Tests, and Challenges. Rescuing each pet will take creative thinking and teamwork. How each task is accomplished is incredibly open ended, which really allows your group of PCs to use their own unique approach to get things done. I’ll refrain for spoiling any more of the adventure, but I will say that it’s a delight to read, GM, and play. Everyone in my family had a blast (including my husband). The ending also had my kids hooked, as it leads directly into the Tails of Equestria: The Curse of the Statuettes adventure (although the book also encourages kids to create their own adventure with the cliff hanger ending as an opening plot hook).

In the end, my entire family loved Tails of Equestria: The Storytelling Game. It’s fun, fast-paced, and simple, but offers everyone at the table plenty of opportunities to role-play and work together. I had a blast sharing this game with my kids. And my kids? They couldn’t be happier. In fact, my daughter is sitting in her bed with a little notebook and her rabbit pen creating another character as we speak.

Absolutely a wonderful game.

Jessica

Adventures in Board Games!

My kids love games. Board games, d20 games, video games. All kinds. So, it should come as no surprise that this Christmas my tree was packed full of games. My kids were lucky enough to get a Nintendo Switch from their uncle this year, so both my son and daughter spent the first few days trying out their new video games. Let’s Go Eevee is a huge hit, as is Super Mario Odyssey. But, when we had some free time together as a family, my kids gravitated right to the new board games. My daughter got quite a few. The Hatchimals Eggventure Game, Bananagrams, and Bunny Kingdom (plus a new d20 game we’ll talk about another time!). And my son got two: Jumanji and Dinosaur Island.

We spent a few days this week opening up the new games, learning how to play them — which is technically me learning how to play them and then teaching them to everyone else — and taking each one for a whirl.

Hatchimals Eggventure Game was quick to learn, which should come as no surprise. I assumed it was another one of those generic board games where you just move around the track that happens to be plastered with pictures of the latest popular kids show. Surprisingly, that wasn’t the exactly case. It was a simple kids game plastered with pictures of Hatchimals, the popular kids toy. But it was also a little more complex than just moving around the board. It involved hatching eggs, which you did by matching cards in your hand to eggs on the board. Cards and eggs were colour coded by which ‘nest’ they could hatch at, and when you landed on the proper nest you revealed one of the appropriate eggs to everyone. If it matched yours you hatched it, and if it didn’t you put it back. First to hatch their eggs wins. It was sort of like a mix between go fish, memory, and a generic kids board game. Not exactly a thrilling gameplay experience, but my daughter adored it and it only cost me a few dollars at the local Giant Tiger (which is a Canadian discount store). It’s simple enough that we can teach it to her cousins and they can play it together. Well worth the money. My son had the worst luck, though! Every single time he had a chance to blindly choose an egg, and had a fifty-fifty chance to get the right one, he got the wrong egg, The entire game. Haha. Poor kid.

Bananagrams was much more fun for everyone. For those of you who’ve never played this delightful little word game, it’s essentially a bunch of letter tiles that you put in the middle of the table. You get a bunch of them, and it’s your job to make words out of the tiles. You have to connect the words to one another by shared letters, either horizontally or vertically. It’s like each player at the table plays their own personal game of scrabble. You race to see who uses up their tiles first, then shout ‘Banana’ when you’ve done so. Everyone checks it for spelling errors, and then you start over for another round. You can also swap letters you’ve got with ones on the table if you want to, which is pretty much what my son did the whole time. Haha. Anyway, it’s a fun little game that’s great for kids of all ages. Mine are quite young, so they had no hope of beating me, but they had fun trying to make their own words and came up with some pretty good ones in the end. As an added bonus its one of those small, compact games that’s great for bringing out to family gatherings, a friend’s house, a road trip, or (in our case) the laundromat. It’s pricier than I expected it to be, though, but I was lucky enough to pick it up on sale.

Jumanji was hell! Don’t get me wrong, I love the game. I was the perfect age for the original Jumanji when it came out, and owned the board game as well as the movie on VHS. I remember my brother and I got a kick out of using the decoder to read the rhyming cards from the movie. I can still rattle some off of the top of my head, actually. “At night they fly, you’d better run, these winged things are not much fun.” There’s a few more, now that I think about it. In fact, I probably remember more of them than I should…

My son isn’t partial to the original Jumanji movie, but when he watched the reboot with Dwayne Johnson and Jack Black in it this past year (Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle ) he LOVED it. Obsessively loved it. He even started writing his own Jumanji stories. Never finished any, of course. He’s both impatient and lazy, which isn’t exactly conducive to finishing the things he starts, but he enjoyed it. So, he was absurdly excited to get a copy of the board game for Christmas. It’s got a nifty little wooden case/board (just like in the original movie), plenty of dice, and is fast paced. Unfortunately, the first time we played it was when my niece and nephew were over. Now, I’m not sure if any of you have had the joy of teaching a new board game to four antsy and overly excited children between the ages of two and seven before, but wow! It was brutal! Haha. As an added complication there were multiple sets of dice — one for each player — and the game pieces were slightly too big for the spaces on the board, so I spent the entire game guiding play, stopping children from consuming game pieces, looking for missing dice, reminding toddlers not to move pieces that aren’t theirs, reading cards, referencing rules, and trying to figure out which of the children happened to have stolen the toy rhino that was supposed to be on the board. It was absolute chaos! Luckily I have the standard Mom superpowers: eyes in the back of my head, extra invisible arms, and limitless patience. In the end we got through it and the kids all had a ton of fun. Definitely not a game to play with all of them again, though. I’ll reach for the generic ‘race around the board’ game plastered with popular cartoon characters next time. But, when it’s just me and my kids, we’re more than happy to enter the jungles of Jumanji. Although, my son insists it would be much more fun as a virtual reality video game. Haha.

Which brings me to the actual point of this blog. Two of the games we picked up weren’t geared at young kids at all. They were aimed at an older audience. And honestly? Both were awesome!

First up? Bunny Kingdom.

Bunny Kingdom is a pricey game that we picked up for my daughter months ago when we found it in the local game store, Game Knight Games and Cool Stuff. Yes, that’s the store’s actual name. It was far out of our budget for an impulse purchase, but my daughter REALLY LOVES RABBITS. Seriously. I’m not sure I can actually emphasize that enough. But, just know: she really loves rabbits. She’s got quite a few rabbit board games already, but none that are games that my husband will sit and play with her. So, when we saw it at the store we figured, why not? I suppose I could have gotten it cheaper off of Amazon, but when we have the chance we always prefer to shop locally. Anyway, we figured that even if my husband hated the game, it was covered in adorable images of rabbitfolk making farms and kingdoms so my daughter would love it.

Luckily, our hunch was right and it turned out to be a lot of fun.

Bunny Kingdom is a board game for 2-4 players. It’s intended for players ages 12 and up, but my kids are only seven and eight and they didn’t have any trouble getting the hang of the game. It’s published by IELLO, features bright and colourful art by Paul Mafayon, and was designed by Richard Garfield (the creator of Magic: The Gathering, King of Tokyo, and Keyforge: Call of The Archons , to name a few). Bunny Kingdom was a nominee for 2018 Origins Awards Best Family Game, and 2017 Cardboard Republic Striker Laurel awards. The box is nice looking and solid, and the board inside looks great. It’s essentially a large map with a 10×10 grid overtop, and a scoreboard on the side. Many of the Bunny Kingdom Box spaces on the map feature settlements and resources that players can claim. Settlements contain castles, while resources allow you to collect wood, carrots, and fish. Unfortunately, our board had suffered damage in two places despite having a seemingly undamaged box. Not what you want to see when you’ve paid a good chunk of change for a new board game!

Each player has a pile of tiny rabbit tokens they can use to claim their territory on the board, and act as their token on the scoreboard. In addition to the player tokens and board, this game comes with three different sized castles (level 1, 2, and 3), corner markers to denote special upgrades and camps that you can add onto spaces, and a massive deck of cards. Seriously massive! You’ll have to split it into a few piles just to shuffle it. The art throughout the board, cards, and box is consistently wonderful. It’s bright, colourful, and cartoony in all the best ways. My daughter repeatedly shrieked in glee, exclaimed “AUW! CUTIES!”, and hugged cards to her chest, so it’s clearly a winner in her opinion! Haha.

The premise of the game is simple. Your great Bunny King has ordered you to lead your clan of rabbits in gathering resources, claiming some land, and establishing new settlements. The rabbit with the most prosperous fief — determined by having the most golden carrots — wins.

So how do you play? For starters, you select your rabbit colour, place one of them on the 0 on the scoreboard, and deal out ten cards to each player. You draft cards from the hand, selecting two you want to keep for yourself, then pass the rest on to the next player. You play some of the card types and set the others aside for later. Then you proceed with the draft. This continues until there are no more cards in hand. Cards can do a few things, but the most important ones are labelled with a letter and a number — coordinates referring to a space on the board. If you select a card like this you get to place a rabbit token there and claim the space as your own. Other cards include camps (which let you claim any unclaimed space until someone claims it with the proper card), settlements (which let you build castles of various levels on your claimed territory), sky towers (which let you connect two distant parts of your fief), resources (which let you collect resources like wood, mushrooms, and iron from your land), treasures (which give you golden carrots), and missions (which give you bonus golden carrots at the end of the game as long as you meet the requirements stated on the card). After the cards are drafted you enter the ‘Build Phase.’ This is when you play all of the castle cards, camps, sky towers, and resources you’ve drafted. After this you earn points (golden carrots) for how prosperous your fiefs are, which is based on number of ‘towers’ on the castles within your connected territories, and the different types of resources they can create. Once points are tallied you’ve reach an end of a round. Then you deal out another ten cards to each player and begin another draft. The game ends after four rounds of gameplay. Then you reveal the treasures and missions you’ve acquired, gaining extra golden carrots for them as appropriate. The winner is the rabbit with the most golden carrots (the highest score).

Our first game took us about an hour to play, but all the other games took up around 40 minutes, which is about how long the game is expected to run. Because the game always lasts four rounds, you can expect this to be a pretty consistent time. Which is really nice!

Bunny Kingdom is a relatively fast paced game that involves some strategy, but doesn’t take up an entire afternoon or a whole day just to play it. Selecting the proper territory is important. You want to grow the size of your fiefs and ensure they connect, but you also want to establish cities and ensure there’s a variety of resources within it’s borders. Knowing which to go for at which times is both a matter of chance, and practise. After playing a round you’ll figure out what’s most important to you. Claiming any territory that already has a castle on it is sound, as is claiming any cards that let you establish resources — or luxury resources — in territories of your choosing. In the first two rounds you won’t earn many golden carrots from your fiefs, but if you build it properly you’ll make a lot in the last two rounds. Treasures are nice, but they offer a small one time payout. Not always worth it. Missions offer a bigger payout, but are sometimes difficult to achieve. They require you invest time in accomplishing them. For example, a mission that promises you one golden carrot per territory you own that can produce wood is nice. But, if you focus on that too much you won’t have a variety of resources available in your fiefs. And it’s variety that earns you golden carrots.

My daughter caught onto the game right away, and had great fun building her kingdoms. She, myself, and my husband all did pretty well. Some games she lagged behind the adults, but others she did just as well or better. Luck played a bit of a factor. So did my daughter’s habit of occasionally selecting cards just because they’re cute. Haha. My son, however, decided that building fiefs takes too much work. Instead he spent the entire first game only taking treasures and missions. We all thought he was crazy! Turns out in the end he went from 0 golden carrots all the way to 147 golden carrots. More than enough to score him a win against my husband’s 116. We were shocked, to say the least. Apparently, taking all the treasures and not bothering with that whole kingdom thing is a decent strategy — as long as you’re the only one who tries it. If too many players go this route it won’t lead to victory.

So, when we played our follow up games, we worked on our kingdoms, took some snazzy treasures and missions, and my son — once again — took every treasure and mission he could get his hands on. This time we thought we had him on the ropes! …And he won again.

*face palm*

I guess we should have taken even more of those treasures… Haha.

Aside from this flaw it was a great game. Of course, it was a rather large flaw. Why should the one person who didn’t bother to even try building a kingdom win a kingdom building game?!? But, we had a lot of fun anyway. Overall, we all thought it was a blast! It’s definitely going to see regular play.

But, our favourite game of the holidays had nothing to do with cute fluffy rabbits. Instead, it featured people-eating dinosaurs! Yes!

Dinosaur Island is a game we picked up for my son because he LOVES Jurassic Park and Jurassic World (and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ). And this game? Pretty much that. You research the genetic code of dinosaurs, create them, and put them in your very own dinosaur theme park. If you don’t have enough security they escape and eat some of your patrons. Which is bad for business, obviously! Haha. In the end, the player with the most successful park wins. The game is designed by Jonathan Gilmour and Brian Lewis, and released by Pandasaurus Games.

Dinosaur Island Box We found it on the shelf at another local game shop, Fusion Gaming, and nearly gagged at the price tag. And then we read the box. My husband traded in some Magic cards for the game, and we brought it home for my son for Christmas. It’s a heavy square box packed full of stuff. There’s lots of boards, pieces, dice, cards, and pop-outs of all kinds in this game, which is frankly a little bewildering at first. But, once you’ve got everything popped out and sorted into the many little storage baggies the game comes with (thank goodness!) you can open up the rulebook and try to figure out what the heck you’re supposed to do. Which is hard! Haha. I had to flip back and forth between the first few pages of the rulebook to set everything up — some pages were telling me how to set up the game, and others were telling me the names of types of pieces. All very important! Once I had everything properly set up — which took me around twenty minutes — I finally flipped the page on the rulebook and started to actually read how to play. It didn’t take too long to read, and there were some very useful gameplay examples for each step that helped me figure things out. But, it was still quite complicated. I had to read and reread each step and its example a few times while referencing the board and the list of piece names. Once I figured out a step I moved on, and then by the time I hit the end of a phase description I went back and read that whole phase over again. Anyway, by the time I finished making sense of the rulebook I was confident I understood how the game worked and could teach it to my family, but that I would still need to reference the rulebook for details on most of the gameplay choices the first time we played through. And I was right! I referenced that rulebook constantly during the first game and still made quite a few mistakes. I used it a lot during the second game (so that we find and correct our mistakes from the first play through), and then in the third and fourth game I only had to reference it a few times to double check a rule or a cost for something we hadn’t come across much yet.

In summary, it was hard to learn. This is a bit of a problem since the game is listed as ages eight and up. Eight! In my opinion, this game is too complex for eight year olds. They can play if they’re joining in with the grown ups or teenagers — like mine did — but its not the kind of game you could give to some eight year olds and expect them to be able to learn and play properly. Twelve and up would be more accurate.

That said, the game was awesome.

Everyone had a blast and, surprisingly, my daughter and husband loved it most of all. In fact, they were both the driving factor in us playing it so many times over the last few days. Which is huge! My daughter is always ready to play a board game, but my husband? Not so much. This is particularly surprising when you take into account how long this game takes to play. It says it takes an hour and a half to two hours to play through, but it took us over three on our first run through (and we played the ‘short game’). Further run throughs also took around three hours each, although the second time we played a ‘medium game’ and the third we played a ‘long game’ with three people instead of four. Definitely a time investment!

Dinosaur Island Game Set Up

So what is Dinosaur Island, and how do you play?

The point of Dinosaur Island is to create the most successful park. Your park’s success is measured in Victory Points, which are most often earned by having guests survive their trip to your park. You can also earn Victory Points by creating dinosaurs and by building some attractions. A number of guests visit your park each turn based on your parks Excitement level, which is also influenced by the number and grandeur of the dinosaurs you have created, and by some attractions. But, getting people to your park isn’t all that matters. You also have to have attractions for them to visit. They’ll visit your dinosaurs, of course, but only so many visitors can view a paddock at a time, so you’ll also want to create other attractions. Things like restaurants and rides for the guests to visit. Another factor you need to take into account is danger. You can have a lot of dinosaurs and a huge excitement level, but if you haven’t invested enough in security then your guests will get eaten by dinosaurs. And dead guests don’t earn you Victory Points!

It’s a complex game that involves multiple phases, each of which allows you to make decisions regarding how you choose to run your park. We didn’t find a single obvious method for best increasing your Victory Points. Which is great! You have a lot of choices to make, and all of them are helpful in different ways. Usually you’ll need to change your priorities from round to round to do well in this game. There was a lot of fun strategy and planning involved, which even got my daughter taking the time to sit, think, plan, count, and envision a few stages and turns ahead. Fun planning, too. Not boring. We all really enjoyed this games layered complexity.

So what are these phases?

Dinosaur Island 2 Phase One is the Research Phase, which will utilize a shared board that will be in the middle of the table. On it you’ll find dice (which usually show DNA in various types, amounts, and a threat level), dinosaur cards, and some other open spaces. During this phase each player will take turns selecting how you want your three scientists to prioritize their research. They can select one of the dinosaur cards in order to learn the DNA recipe for that dinosaur, they can select a DNA dice in order to collect that kind of DNA, they can work to increase your cold storage (which is the maximum levels of each type of DNA you can hold), or they can refrain from doing research and instead become an extra worker for the third phase. All of these options are really important. Dinosaurs raise excitement levels which in turn draw in guests, but they each cost different kinds of DNA. Collecting DNA to create them is important. Of course, your cold storage starts off small, so you’ll want to increase it as you play.

Phase Two is the Market Phase, which will utilize a shared board that will be in the middle of the table. On it you’ll find a variety of DNA, lab upgrades and park attractions you can purchase, and specialist workers you can hire. During this phase each player takes a turn selecting what they want to purchase, until each player has bought two things.

Phase Three is the Worker Phase, which will utilize a personal board which will be in front of you. On it you’ll find your DNA Cold Storage and your current levels of DNA, your current threat level, your current security level, as well as your current lab facilities and upgrades. During this phase you place your workers (typically you have four) on your board to accomplish certain tasks. Tasks can include refining DNA from one type to another advanced type, creating dinosaurs, increasing security measures, increasing paddock capacity, and raising capital. In addition, some lab upgrades will give you more options, or allow you to perform tasks with less workers invested in them, or at a financial discount. Once everyone has placed their personal workers (which happens all at the same time) you tell your fellow players what your workers are doing and apply it.

Dinosaur Island Phase Four is the Park Phase, which will utilize a personal board which will be in front of you. On it you’ll find you park, your current dinosaurs and paddock capacities, your attractions, and the number of guests which can visit each location. During the Park Phase you count up your Excitement which determines how many guests visit your park, receive income from entry fees (except for those pesky hooligans who sneak inside!), place guests at attractions, calculate threat against your security, see if any dinosaurs escape, have dinosaurs devour guests, and finally count up how many surviving guests you retain, which will grant you Victory Points.

Phase Five is the Cleanup Phase, which is when you tidy up the boards and prepare them for the next round. It’s also when you determine the next round’s turn order. Whoever has the most Victory Points goes last, while the least goes first. And then its onto the next round, with Phase One.

There’s a lot more to this game than we’ve mentioned. Plot Twist Cards help make every game different, and objective cards determine the goals you need to accomplish in order to end the game. These goals are sorted by game length, so if you want a short game you select objectives at random from the short game deck, while a long game will require cards drawn from the long game deck.

We absolutely loved this game. So much, in fact, that my husband is considering buying my son the expansion for his birthday gift. The expansion, called Dinosaur Island: Totally Liquid, allows for a fifth player to join in the fun, features water dinosaurs, more DNA dice, new attractions, and more. Super cool!

All in all, we’re thrilled with our new games.

Think you know of a game we’ll love? Let us know in the comments! I’d love to hear it!

GAME ON!

Jessica

Starfinder Society Scenarios: It Rests Beneath and Honorbound Emissaries!

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-28: It Rests Beneath is a Tier 1-4 adventure written by Jason Tondro. It takes place on the planet Vabaimus, a Near Space world home to a variety of ecosystems and rich mineral deposits. It’s dominant native species is a sloth-like race that is approaching sentience. On Vabaimus you will help out a small Starfinder research facility. This scenario features the Faction (Wayfinders), and Vehicle tags. It does not contain starship combat. It utilizes content from the Starfinder Core Rulebook, Starfinder Armory, and Starfinder Alien Archive . It makes use of Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Hill Country, Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Twisted Caverns, and Starfinder Flip-Mat: Asteroid. In addition, you’ll also want a relatively featureless map, like Pathfinder Flip Mat: Basic Terrain Multi-Pack or Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Dragon’s Lair, for any unmapped encounters. If you’ve got any vehicle-related boons now is the time to slot them. Similarly, if your character happens to own their own vehicle, definitely bring it along!

It Rests Beneath features only one recurring character: Fitch, leader of the Wayfinders faction, an her mischievous grandchildren. It introduces a few new characters: Dr. Mora Motressi, leader of a Starfinder research facility on Vabaimus; her daughter, Little Mina; and Bud, a cuddly sloth-like being that’s both the good doctor’s pet and the most advanced native species on the planet. This scenario begins on the Master of Stars, the largest ship in the Starfinder fleet. It’s currently docked in Absalom Station’s Armada and has been undergoing repairs since the start of Starfinder Society Organized Play. From there it swiftly transitions to Vabaimus, where the rest of the scenario takes place. There PCs will need to assist the science team in performing a survey of a strange landmass. Nearly 85,000 square miles in size, with no water or plant-life, this calcified plateau is of great interest to Dr. Motressi and her team. She asks you to travel across the plateau to three specific locations, set up some specialized towers you brought with you, and calibrate surveying equipment atop of each one. Each tower has its own challenges, hazards, and enemies to contend with. There’s multiple vehicles your PCs can choose from, and the towers can be tackled in any order. There’s a simple vehicle handout that will be useful for both players and GMs, which is a nice touch. I love how flavourful the new creatures and environmental hazards are. A lot of thought has gone into ensuring they fit into their ecosystem — which is particularly important when players are surveying an environment. Also, I particularly enjoyed the mystery of the old kasathan ship.

I do have one nitpick. Page three is missing half of a sentence at the end of the first section, which I assume should read something along the lines of ‘up to help,’ ‘up to lend a hand,’ or something else similar. It’s not a hindrance to the scenario. You can still get the gist of what it’s supposed to be saying, but it was jarring enough that it caused me to look around in confusion for a half a minute, to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. A minor distraction in an otherwise enjoyable read.

Overall, I loved I this scenario! The premise is different from any that have come before. It was engaging all the way through, with a wonderful array of social interactions, skill-based encounters, hazards, and combat. The enemies and hazards were all well-thought out. The NPCs were properly engaging and ‘real.’ And, best of all, your PCs have to make an important decision regarding the future of this planet. Really top notch! Although it didn’t blow my mind, like some other amazing Starfinder adventures, it was an… understated awesome. I give it 5 out of 5 stars.

Starfinder Society #1-29: Honorbound Emissaries is a Tier 7-10 adventure written by Jenny Jarzabski. Yup, you heard that right! Tier 7-10! The first of its kind! It takes place primarily on Saaruq-5, a planet in the Vast that’s part of a multiplanetary federation called the Kreiholm Freehold. This scenario features the Faction (Second Seekers [Luwazi Elsebo]) tag, and does not involve Starship combat. It continues the ongoing Scoured Stars storyline, and is a direct sequel to the events of Starfinder Society #1-99: The Scoured Stars Invasion. Although playing these previous adventures isn’t necessary, I highly suggest you do. Everything will make more sense, have more importance, and be more engaging if you have. It features NPCs from some previous scenarios (Starfinder Society Scenario #1-04: Cries from the Drift, Starfinder Society Scenario #1-05: The First Mandate, and Starfinder Society Scenario #1-11: In Pursuit of the Scoured Past). In addition, there are multiple instances where PCs who have played previous scenarios involving the jinsul have an advantage (Starfinder Society Scenario #1–13: On the Trail of History, Starfinder Society Scenario #1–99: The Scoured Stars Invasion, or Starfinder Society Scenario #1–23: Return to Sender). Finally, it should also be noted that this scenario helps lay the foundations for further scenarios, as well as the next interactive special. Important stuff! If you’ve got characters who have played any of the above-mentioned scenarios, I highly suggest bringing them. And, if you’ve got the Honorbound Allies boon, now’s the time to slot it!

Honorbound Emissaries utilizes Pathfinder Map Pack: Starship Decks, Starfinder Flip-Mat: Hospital , and a custom half-page map. It contains content from the Starfinder Core Rulebook, Starfinder Alien Archive, Starfinder Alien Archive 2, and Starfinder Armory. In addition to containing important events, this scenario has a lot of important NPCs. It features First Seeker Luwazi Elsebo, Iteration-177 (who was previously in Starfinder Society Scenario #1-05: The First Mandate and Starfinder Society Scenario #1-11: In Pursuit of the Scoured Past), Captain Yuluzak (who was previously in Starfinder Society Scenario #1-04: Cries from the Drift), and mentioned (but unfortunately doesn’t feature) the gruff vesk pawnbroker Julzakama (who was previously in Starfinder Quest: Into the Unknown and Starfinder Society Scenario #1-10: The Half-Alive Streets). Captain Yuluzak has his own artwork this time around, and it is awesome! All of these NPCs were well-represented, and I’m happy to see them back. Honorbound Emissaries also introduces a ton of new NPCs to interact with, many of which have names, personalities, and quirks. I particularly enjoyed the crew of Honorbound.

The opening premise for this mission is… convoluted. Captain Yuluzak, who runs a salvager, discovered a starship wreck, took what was valuable and returned to Absalom Station. Some objects he kept, and others he sold to a pawnbroker named Julzakama. Juzakama recognized one of the objects as an important piece of art and contacted some people he thought would buy it. One of those people, Iteration-177, recognized the object as belonging to a culture that was once a part of the Scoured Stars Trinary System, so he contacted Luwazi Elsebo. Luwazi had the object brought to her, along with a team of Starfinders, Iteration-177, and Captain Yuluzak himself. Luwazi tasks the PCs with travelling aboard Captain Yuluzak’s ship to investigate the original wreck. There they’ll determine the ship’s origins, and travel there to investigate and (hopefully) make some new allies.

Jinsul Graey Erb — A jinsul. Illustrated by Graey Erb. Art courtesy of Paizo Inc.

This scenario was big with a capital ‘B.’ It involves the Scoured Stars storyline, the jinsul, a new solar system full of inhabited planets, three new races (nelentu, syngathrix, and thyr), people to save, important decisions to make, a massive starship battle, and combat on… well we’ll leave that part secret for now. Haha. To say this scenario is bold is an understatement! The entire hospital section of this scenario was particularly well handled, as were the NPC interactions found throughout. And the setting for the final battle? Epic! Your PCs are sure to come away from that fight feeling like badass action heroes. It’s going to be a ton of fun to play. On the downside, everything in this scenario is overly convenient in a rather heavy-handed way. Now, I’ve no problem with a ‘railroad,’ particularly in short adventures like Society Scenarios, but in Honorbound Emissaries you always arrive in the exact right place at the exact right time in order to avoid something troublesome. Heck, you even travel through a massive space battle and don’t get attacked by either side. At all! In fact, you even manage to approach the planet and land without a single threat or altercation. It’s like you’re invisible. Which brings me to me second down-side: starship combat. This scenario should have had one. Getting to witness an epic starship war and not engage in it at all is kind of a let down. And how fun would it have been to help out the crew of the Honorbound? Now, I get why it’s not in here. This scenario has more than enough encounters to engage in, and they’re all cool. But, it would have been nice to at least see the ship you’re on come under attack. Or mention the bumpy ride as the pilot has to take evasive maneuvers. Something.

…But that final battle! Wow! Haha.

sfs 1-13 - on the trail of history - jinsul ship — A jinsul ship. Originally depicted in SFS #1-13: On the Trail of History. Art courtesy of Paizo Inc.

Overall, I really enjoyed this scenario. It’s bold, daring, and casts your players into situations much bigger than themselves. PCs get to do some heroic things, some absurd things, and some absurdly heroic things, all of which is going to be a blast! It’s rounded out by some really solid social interactions with a large cast of quirky characters. This is truly one of those scenarios that players will talk about for a long time afterwards, simply because they want to brag about their character’s exploits. Five years some now I’m sure some players will still look back on it fondly and say “Wow, remember when my Starfinder character did THAT? THAT was cool.”

Which is cool!

I give this scenario 5 out of 5 stars.

Thanks for joining us today!

I wish you happy holidays, plenty of natural 20s, and all the best in the upcoming year!

Jessica

Pathfinder Society Scenarios: The Shattered Shield and The Hao Jin Hierophant!

10-10 Shattered Shield — Pathfinder Society Scenario #10-10: The Shattered Shield by Leo Glass

Pathfinder Society Scenario #10-10: The Shattered Shield is a Tier 1-5 adventure written by Leo Glass. It takes place in Rahadoum, a nation where religion is outlawed. It features creatures from Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary, Bestiary 3, and Bestiary 4 (although all of the necessary stat blocks are included within the scenario). It makes use of the Pathfinder Core Rulebook, Advanced Player’s Guide, Ultimate Equipment, and Ultimate Magic. This scenario utilizes Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Noble Estate, Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Museum, and a morbid custom map that looks pretty rockin’. This mission is of particularly importance to members of the Dark Archives Faction, and is very likely going to lead to other Pathfinder Society Scenarios (and tie in with the Tyrant’s Grasp Adventure Path, I’d wager).

On the surface, because religion is outlawed in Rahadoum, bringing a cleric, paladin, or other divine caster on this mission is a really bad idea, but actually… that’s only half true. Yes, religion is outlawed in Rahadoum, and playing a divine caster will be a challenge. There will be social repercussions, and you’re likely to run into trouble with the law. However, these interactions are very well-handled in this scenario with the addition of ‘Legion Points,’ which are a measure of how many legal infractions the Pure Legion has caught you committing. The punishments are clear, and you have plenty of opportunities to lower these totals throughout the scenario. You’re not going to be executed, or immediately kicked out of the scenario or something equally drastic. As long as you play your divine character with some subtlety and caution, you should come out alright. As a nice bonus, there are quite a few obvious benefits to bringing that divine caster along. Players who take the time and try their best to navigate this difficult political landscape will find their efforts were worth it. It’s a gamble. Although I don’t recommend you bring a divine-heavy party to this scenario, I don’t condemn their use either. If you’re up for the challenge, go for it!

The Shattered Shield tasks the PCs with heading into Rahadoum and attending an illegal auction that deals in religious relics. There they’ll need to obtain a shard of the Shield of Arnisant, which was once known as the Shield of Aroden, and was used to battle the Whispering Tyrant. This shield is supposed to be safe in Vigil, but all signs seem to show that the shard up for auction is legitimate. Of course, as with any good scenario, acquiring the shard will be harder than it sounds.

Zaashakar Tom Ventre — Zaashakar and Vaultkeeper from Pathfinder Society Scenario #10-10: The Shattered Shield. Illustration by Tom Ventre

There’s a lot to like in this scenario. It has a lot of interesting social and skill-based encounters. There’s one very weird illness going around that’s used to great effect. The mission briefing with Venture Captain Obo was very detailed, with plenty for roleplay-oriented players to riff off of. I particularly enjoyed how the Pure Legion was portrayed. This scenario did a great job of humanizing them, which was nice to see. The adventure allowed for some deviation from the assumed path, with alternate allies and differing methods accounted for. I really, REALLY liked that. It’s rare to see in published products, particularly of this length. I also really enjoyed some behind the scenes bits with Nulalla, which most players will be curious about but aren’t likely to discover completely. I loved the situation that Torvad Shalzadin and Inusi Mendalari find themselves in. In addition to being dynamic and a little suspenseful, clever PCs will be able to glean a bit of information about this scenario’s main villain from the witnesses. The final location PCs visit in this scenario was super morbid and different. I really, really liked it. And the map for it looks great! Finally, I adored the main villain’s… pal. It’s both horrible and adorable. Just awesome.

That said, there are some downsides. The auction itself was a bit of a let-down. Although there’s some interesting people to interact with, and some cool things to bid on it’s unscripted, and the notes are scattered over a few pages. This is inconvenient for GMs, and means that the auction is unlikely to be a showstopper. Which is a shame! I LOVE a good auction in my Pathfinder. Events are also a bit overly convenient. Not a trait unique to this scenario, but it is more obvious and heavy-handed than is typical. Particularly with regards to the connections between the estate and the auction guests.

Finally, villain tactics. This scenario’s villain is an odd one. Don’t get me wrong, I love her. Seriously. She has flaws, hang-ups, quirks, obsessions, and goals which both haunt and drive her. They affect her tactics and reactions. Unfortunately, it’s not depicted in a way that everyone — GMs and players alike — will necessarily notice. And if you don’t notice? She comes off seeming rather stupid. Which is… unfortunate. And as cool as the final location is, the ending has the potential to be incredibly anticlimactic. I like the premise, and it works for the character, but if certain events occur a lot of players will just be left shaking their heads and asking: ‘That’s it?’ Not really the reaction you want at the end of a successful mission.

10-11 Hao Jin Hierophant — Pathfinder Society Scenario #10-11: The Hao Jin Hierophant by Jessica Redekop.

There’s one other quibble I have with this scenario: penalties. As with any Society Scenario, there’s many opportunities where not discovering ‘X’ or accomplishing ‘X’ can cause your PCs to lose out on some of the gold rewards on their chronicles. Usually accomplishing those tasks is easy, and it just sort of happens as you play. In this scenario that is not necessarily the case. Some are harder to get than is typical. Most groups won’t get full gold. In fact, some groups will miss out on gold two or three times. Now, on the one hand, I like that it’s not a given you’ll get all the rewards this scenario has to offer. It’s refreshing. But, this scenario might have gone too far in the other direction. If too many players miss out on too much of the rewards, they might even feel like they’ve been unjustly penalized.

Overall, I ended up torn on this mission. I love how Rahadoum and the Pure Legion was handled. I also enjoyed the large number of social and skill based encounters. The villain was flavourful, different, and had some serious quirks — all things I adore. Heck, I even liked her doorman. On the other hand, players are likely to come away from this scenario feeling confused over enemy tactics and behaviour, and the ending has the potential to be a let down. In the end I decided to give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Hao Jin Tapestry by Robert Lazzaretti — The Hao Jin Tapestry. Art by Robert Lazzaretti.

Pathfinder Society Scenario #10-11: The Hao Jin Hierophant is a Tier 5-9 adventure written by Jessica Redekop. It takes place in the Hao Jin Tapestry, an artifact that acts as a gateway to a demiplane that the sorceress Hao Jin created to store her greatest treasures. Things like magical objects, temples, places, and even people. The Pathfinder Society won the Hao Jin Tapestry seven years ago at the Ruby Pheonix Tournament, and have made heavy use of it since. This scenario features creatures from Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary 5, although all of the necessary stat blocks are included within the scenario. In addition to the Pathfinder Core Rulebook it makes use of content from Occult Adventures, Planar Adventures, Ultimate Equipment, and Ultimate Magic. It utilizes the Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Forbidden Jungle, Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics: Swamp, and a custom map.

The Hao Jin Tapestry is unstable. Unravelling, one could say. This scenario tasks the PCs with heading into the demiplane, checking out an ancient Tian site, and getting out with whatever lore and treasures they can before it’s too late. It’s a sequel to this year’s interactive special Pathfinder Society Scenario #10-00: The Hao Jin Cataclysm. In the new year this story will continue with Pathfinder Society Scenario #10-13: Fragments of Antiquity, and Pathfinder Society Scenario #10-15: Tapestry’s Trial. If you’ve got characters who have had a hand in acquiring, exploring, or protecting the Hao Jin Tapestry in the past, now is definitely the time to bring them out! Also, if you’ve got characters with knowledge of Tian Xia, who can speak Hwan, or who can magically communicate in other languages, they’ll be used to great effect in this scenario.

Lin Fen Hai by Michele Giorgi — Lin Fen Hai from Pathfinder Society Scenario #10-11: The Hao Jin Hierophant. Illustration by Michele Giorgi.

This scenario begins in Absalom with an announcement from two members of the Decemvirate! This is followed by a more typical mission briefing with the oread Master of Spells Sorrina Westyr. From there it quickly moves into the Hao Jin Tapestry’s demiplane. There the PCs will get to explore the ancient Tian village of Onhae, which would once have been found in the jungles of Chang Liao. The PCs main goals are to collect a sample of a rare flower from the area, and to learn all that they can about the traditional religion and culture of the people of Onhae, the Sunsu Godae. Happily, there’s still people in Onhae. This should be a cinch! …But, it turns out they’re not practising their traditional religion anymore. They have a new leader, Lin Fen Hai the Hao Jin Hierophant, and a new god who we’ll just call the Ruby Pheonix. Interesting! Your players will get to navigate this newly changed political environment in order to accomplish their missions, all while the Hao Jin Tapestry frays around them, causing unnatural events, magical malfunctions, and planar breaches. It’s an interesting mission to say the least. Similar in form and tone to some previous adventures like… #3-21: The Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment and #9-12: Shrine of the Sacred Tempest.

RubyPhoenix Hao Jin Cataclysm — The Ruby Phoenix.

Onhae was an interesting, rich little village with both and ancient past, recent history, and current changes. Sussing out this places many secrets looks like an enjoyable challenge. Their new religion was awesome! Haha. So good! Although a lot of this scenario was social encounters and skill checks, there are some battles to be fought. Each of these encounters is well written and has interesting flavour and tactics. There’s also some neat planar malfunctions going on you get to interact with. Overall, I really liked this scenario! I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Thanks for taking the time to join us today! I hope you stop by later this week when we take a look at the newest Starfinder Society Scenarios!

All the best,

Jessica

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: