Who wants to play-test a product I have coming out for Pathfinder for me?
Said Glynn of Monkeyblood Design. You may or may not know him – if you are on Google+ you would have seen the fantastic maps that he makes. He is just a generally all round talented kind of guy in reality and so it was a no brainer for me to put my hand up. So in reality I am going to be writing this review from the point of view of a Play Testing GM which means that I have not fully gone through and seen all of the changes that came after the testing, but I am very familiar with the product.
I played this module with my players over a period of four nights. The players arrive in the village of Gravencross to investigate the falling of three stones from the skies in the area. This makes the adventure one of investigation and travelling around the area of Gravencross and its surrounds. The Demon Stones hold secrets that become apparent toward the end of the adventure where the true threats emerge. I am not going to wreck the tale for you but it is intriguing and well put together.
Gravencross for me was the highlight of this adventure. The village seems only lightly detailed when I read it but the details are right on the money. We had so much fun in Gravencross and all of my players really felt the NPC’s and the village itself was really well done and it came alive for them. I have to say that a lot of this is true for the NPC’s across the entire module, including the foes. The ideas of who they are and why they are there is made clear so that as a GM the motivation just sits there guiding me through all the interactions.
There were three or four groups running the adventure at the same time and the community spirit really came in when we were play testing it. A report would go up and Glynn and the other GM’s would all wade in with comment. It was also interesting to see how the different groups differed using the same adventure framework. I would say of the three or four groups there are players telling three or four different stories of what happened. It is of course probably what happens with every module, but it was very interesting to watch it happen in person.
There are some great scenes in this module. Both roleplaying and battle opportunities to prepare themselves for. A crazy druid, a tough mercenary group, an ornery wyvern, some unhappy spirits and all sorts of other materials including a monster from the black lagoon (sort of). I feel my players really enjoyed the adventure as a whole. We had some deaths and accidents along the way but you would expect that while an adventure is being play tested! The bonus is we could just gloss over it and bring them back so we could try things differently.
The production quality of the final product is brilliant. You can get it in PDF or order it printed also and marvel at the art and layout which is all Glynn’s work. I really think that this is a brilliant module that could be inserted into any campaign for an average party of 5th level. There are some great maps and a really solid resource section with some new creatures and some mythology for your world that you could adopt. You can get the PDF’s from our own Games On Board! You can also get it from DriveThru RPG and PFSRD but to encourage all my readers to sign up to Games On Board and download it from there I am giving a 10% discount for any purchase of The Demon Stones for the rest of September! To get the discount all you need do is enter GravenX as a coupon code while you are logged in at checkout to get the discount! Account creation is free and all payments are handled through PayPal so I do not want your credit card details!
Whatever you do though make sure you get it (hopefully from Games On Board but I really just want to see Glynn do well) and play a really great module! Keep rolling!