Minireview: Pathfinder #19, Howl of the Carrion King

Howl of the Carrion King opens up Paizo’s new adventure path, Legacy of Fire. The story this time around moves into “Arabian Nights” territory, which has potential to be interesting. Written by Erik Mona, it kicks off the story in a very satisfying fashion.

The story takes place in Katapesh, where a band of heroes (cue the PCs) has decided to take on the task of liberating a small town from the clutches of a bandit lord, “The Carrion King”. Ruling over hordes of savage gnoll tribes, the Carrion King is slowly carving a kingdom for himself and it’s up to some suitable cannonfodder (cue PCs, again) to put a stop to all that. It’s assumed that the players generate characters with suitable motivations with that starting scenario in mind – the Player’s Guide to the adventure path contains some helpful pointers. On the whole, it’s a pretty good low-level adventure – the encounters are quite varied and there are lots of options to solve things via negotiation instead of straight combat, always refereshing. There’s also some nice bits where sneaking around and suchlike investigation is probably the smartest move. This one should give everyone something to do, and it’s pretty freeform.

We’ll see where this adventure path goes later on, storywise, but the beginning holds promise. I wasn’t too thrilled with the last adventure path (Second Darkness), but based on plot synopsis this one sounds more to my liking. Bonus points for the “big bad” not trying to destroy the world or something cliched like that, the actual motivation is something quite amusing.

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