Minireview: City of Golden Death (Pathfinder)
City of Golden Death (written by Joshua J. Frost) is the finale of the three-part mini-campaign begun with Crypt of the Everflame and Masks of the Living God. I really liked those two, and this one does not disappoint either – all three are very different from each other in plot and tone, but still have links to each other and are designed to be run in sequence. It’s sort of like some the 1st edition AD&D series of modules, where the adventures were standalone but also a part of a series. In a way, this is something between a solo module and a larger “adventure path” series.
Of course, none of that matters is the adventures themselves are no good, or contain extremely weak links. No such problem here, City of Golden Death is a very nice finale to the series. Again, it’s quite different in tone to the previous two; here we have the PCs venturing into dangerous ancient ruins, trying to stop the plans of the main Bad Guy before it’s too late. It’s quite cinematic and “pulpy” in places, but in a good way. After the sneaky previous episode, the more straightforward plot here is probably a welcome change of pace. It’s assumed that the PCs will want to do their bit just because they are heroic, so the GM might need to dangle some additional carrots (or a big stick) to starts things off here. On the other hand, the previous adventure already assumed that the PCs had reason to act against the Cult of Razmir, so that motivation will probably just carry over to this one.
As for the “pulpy” bit… well, here the main locale is a place called (I kid you not) “Isle of Terror”. Subtle it’s not, and it’s also a bit cheesy… but hey, old D&D had the “Isle of Doom” (later also used in the Savage Tide adventure path), so it’s in good company.
If you’re looking for a nice mini-campaign for Pathfinder (or other D&D variant), you might want to check out this series of three adventures.
Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:52 Posted in Books, Games
Tags paizo, pathfinder
