Pathfinder Society Scenario # 2-11: "The Penumbral Accords" [RPG]

NO SPOILERS

I played through this as high sub-tier and then read the scenario for the purposes of this review.  Like many early PFS scenarios, The Penumbral Accords is high on combat and low on role-playing.  It has a very simple structure and runs on the short side in terms of duration.  Despite a cool backstory premise, it doesn't end up being much more than a group of separate combat encounters.  It's not one I'd go out of my way to play, but I guess it's fine for what it is.

SPOILERS

The inimitable Drandle Dreng calls the PCs in for an emergency midnight briefing to start the session.  The Penumbral Accords is one of those PFS scenarios that take place almost entirely in the famous Blakros Museum, but the background here is really interesting.  It turns out that, centuries ago, the Blakros family rose to a position of wealth and power through a nefarious bargain they struck with a cabal called the Onyx Alliance in the Shadow Plane!  The Onyx Alliance allowed the Blakros family to use the Shadow Plane as a tariff- and pirate-free highway for trade, while in exchange they asked for a steady supply of slaves and (once a generation) the family's eldest daughter!  The Blakros family has finally decided that the cost is too high, and wants out of the deal: and that's where the Pathfinder Society comes in.  In order to gain continued access to the relics inside the museum, the Society has agreed to send agents to stop the Onyx Alliance.

The twist is that, on the night of each new moon, the Onyx Alliance uses a device called the Wightir Conjunction to overlay the Shadow Plane's version of the Blakros Museum (a laboratory for degenerate experimentation) over the real one on the Material Plane.  At dawn, everyone inside the museum who has been marked with an arcane sigil is transported to the Shadow Plane.  Since there are already slaves and Blakros women (twins) in the Museum, the Pathfinders have to hurry!  (at least in theory; in reality the PCs will have plenty of time)

Once inside the museum, the PCs see the strange effects of the overlay--a single room may have two signs indicating what's within, one that's "real" and one that represents the same room in the Shadow Plane.  Several creatures and effects from the Shadow Plane can be interacted with, and I think a really good GM could make this into a suitably creepy site for an adventure.  Atmospherics aside, however, one of the weaknesses of this scenario is that it is a very by-the-book "each room has an independent encounter and one room has the boss" type of adventure.  There's very little opportunity for role-playing or need for non-combat abilities, which was often a feature of these early PFS scenarios.  The PCs will be like a fantasy SWAT team doing room-by-room sweeps.

There are seven numbered rooms in the museum, and six of them contain encounters.  There are some interesting creatures to face, such as a skeletal dragon, a shadow hound, an ice golem (depending on subtier), and some fletchling guards.  My favourite of the encounters (against an alchemist) takes place in a room that (on the Shadow Plane) is a vivisection lab, complete with partially vivisected (but still alive) subject!  The "boss" battle is against a fetchling monk.  The setting for the battle is pretty cool in terms of description (a chamber with an ebony pyramid while the ritual is underway), but most groups won't have trouble defeating a single enemy that's near their CR.  Just like with a previous scenario ("Mists of the Mwangi"), there's nothing that routes PCs through particular rooms, which means a party could easily stumble into the end encounter very early in the scenario and finish it quite quickly.

All in all, the scenario has a cool backstory and a lot of fun little references to lore and setting, but at its core it's a very basic dungeon crawl (just in a museum instead of underground).  I can imagine things that could have been done to make it better, like a hard time limit the PCs would have to brush up against before the ritual was concluded, or some sort of PC involvement to reverse the ritual, or even some sort of role-playing negotiation with members of the Onyx Alliance, etc.  As written though, there's not much here unless players are *really* interested in the Shadow Plane or the GM is looking for a quick, simply scenario to run.