Pathfinder Society Scenario # 0-24: "Decline of Glory" [RPG]

NO SPOILERS

I recently ran Decline of Glory for Subtier 1-2 via play-by-post.  From the GM's perspective, it has a very "raw" feel, with a lot of details and encounter transitions a bit vague and fuzzy.  In some places there's much more information than a GM needs (such as crazy long adventure background and summary sections), while in other places in the adventure itself the GM has to fill in some gaps.  From a story perspective, I guess it's okay but not great.  All in all, Decline of Glory doesn't hold up particularly well.  As it doesn't establish interesting lore about the setting or the Pathfinder Society, it's really for completists only. 

SPOILERS!

As the very long background section covers, there's a tiny, out-of-the-way settlement along the Taldor coast called Railford.  The area around Railford is swampy and overgrown, so the land's not good for much.  But it does happen to have the perfect climate for vineyards, and a century ago a wine distillery was established on a hill in the area and the settlement grew around it for its employees.  Formerly owned by the noted Pathfinder Iadon Railford, the distillery passed on his death to his son, a former Taldan soldier named Becher Railford.  Now, the Pathfinder Society sees the distillery as the perfect place to establish a new Pathfinder Lodge and it wants the PCs to go to Railford and persuade the owner to make a deal for it.  As an aside, I really can't fathom why the Society would want to establish a lodge in what's clearly the middle of nowhere.  Given that we never hear of the place again, the Society must have also shelved the plan.

The adventure starts in media res as the PCs are marching through the muck at night toward Railford (a typical Season Zero "flashback briefing" explains their goal).  One of the things I should say the scenario does well is set up atmosphere--the frequent descriptions of the constant drizzle, muck, leeches in the mud, etc., all contribute to situating the adventure in a particular environment.  Anyway, as the PCs march toward Railford, they have their first encounter.  What the PCs don't know from the briefing is that a brutish soldier named Grald Kretchmoor and his troops have surrounded Railford and plan to seize it unless Becher can produce his deeds to the land.  Several squads of soldiers (and their dogs) are camped around the town, so the PCs are likely to just accidentally stumble into one and be attacked.  If the battle lasts too long (unlikely given how tough modern PCs are), additional squads could arrive.  One challenge I found while running this encounter is deciding on encounter distance, as the scenario doesn't give any guidance.

Once the PCs arrive in the settlement proper, they'll have a chance to speak to the (suitably wary) townsfolk and learn that Becher isn't at the distillery.  Instead, he's left with some of his workers to retrieve the deeds from where they'd been hidden in a secret cache (a cave for barrel-aging) in the swamps.  Although my group didn't, there's a chance that the PCs can actually learn very early that there's an additional problem: ghouls in the swamp!

While travelling through the swamp, there are some annoying leeches to deal with and then an encounter against some monstrous plants (violet fungus, bog screamers/shriekers, and, at high-tier, a shambling mound).  Again, nothing too serious for modern PCs, though it is worth noting that everything in the adventure happens in one night, so there's not an opportunity to rest and recover if a PC does take a hard hit or expends their resources early.

There's a fun bit with the entrance to the caves being blocked with debris that leads to a long-fall with a previously-trapped ghoul along for the ride.  Inside, the caves are partially flooded, making movement difficult.  I think my players hated it, but I thought it was a good opportunity for some of the ranged characters to shine as zombies slowly trudged towards them.  Travelling to the caves ends up being a bit of a runaround, as it turns out that Becher has already retrieved the deeds and headed back to Railford via a secret underground tunnel.  He's very ill from ghoul fever when the PCs find him, and says he'll agree to the deal if they help him deal with Kretchmoor and his thugs.  

The big finale of the scenario takes place in the distillery and is set up as an "Assault on Precinct 13" situation.  The PCs need to defend the building as Kretchmoor's soldiers try to break their way in through various doors.  But there's a reasonably good twist, in that the soldiers themselves will come under attack from an even more serious threat: rampaging ghouls!  The concept is for drama to be piled on drama as the PCs' initial foes plead for help against an even more dangerous foe.  It's a good concept, though it didn't really work in practice in the session I ran.  One issue was that the soldiers took ages trying to break into the distillery (they needed something like a natural 20 on Strength or repeated chopping to do any damage above the hardness of the doors).  It became more amusing than dangerous.  A second issue was that the soldiers (and Kretchmoor) were pushovers, easily defeated by the internal timeline for the ghouls to actually show up (I think it would scale even worse at higher subtiers).  From a GM's perspective, the scenario seems ambiguous or even contradictory in places about exactly what enemies will show up when and where, so some discretion will have to be exercised.  Other important details, like the location and width of windows, are missing.

Assuming all goes well, the PCs will succeed in securing the deal and "are forever treated with honorary status at that lodge."  Ha!