Pathfinder Module: "Crown of the Kobold King" [RPG]

NO SPOILERS

Man, that cover art really catches the eye!  Crown of the Kobold King was the first adventure (apart from a Free RPG Day offering) in Paizo's GameMastery line of modules.  Designed for Level 2 PCs, it involves wilderness and dungeon exploration centred around the town of Falcon's Hollow and the ominous forest known as Darkmoon Vale.  I ran this last year as part of my "Roots of Golarion" campaign and I can't say it was a huge hit.  There are a *lot* of encounters in close succession, and because the plot is on something of a timer, it was far more than an average party of Level 2 PCs should be expected to handle (even for Pathfinder RPG PCs, which tend to be tougher than the D&D 3.5 PCs the module was written for).  That being said, the module is engaging and well-written, and this is far from an average dungeon crawl.  It introduces several interesting NPCs and sets up what could be a memorable "Falcon's Hollow" mini-campaign (using other modules in the line set there).  I just think it should be run for higher level PCs.

SPOILERS

In many modules, the "Adventure Background" section is kind of dull, but it's surprisingly entertaining in Crown of the Kobold King.  A tribe of kobolds living under an abandoned dwarven monastery (a place once devoted to the dark god of toil, Droskar) has met with a streak of bad luck recently.  The tribe's shaman has determined that a sacrifice of human children will turn things around, so the tribe promptly kidnapped five adolescents from nearby Falcon's Hollow.

This is where the PCs come in, as Part One of the module is set in Falcon's Hollow.  The reasons the PCs are in the town and how they hear about the missing kids is left fairly undetermined, which is fine for experienced GMs but perhaps not the best direction for new GMs.  But in any event, after finding out some information about the kids and what direction they headed, the adventure leaves Falcon's Hollow behind.  This is primarily a traditional "trek through the wilderness to get to the dungeon" type of adventure, and there's not a lot of town-based role-playing.  That being said, I don't want to give the impression that this module was lazily written.  The town itself is well-detailed with a gazetteer in an appendix, and all of the missing kids receive pictures, backgrounds, and personalities.  A lot of groundwork is laid here that can be developed in either future modules or homemade adventures.

In Part Two, the PCs follow the trail of the missing kids to the ruins of a burned-down orphanage several miles out of town (the kids went there to camp on a dare, which is where they were abducted by the kobolds).  This orphanage has a dark and grisly history, and the PCs will be able to learn about some of it through exploration (the spiders streaming out of a corpse is a classic horror moment!).  The group will encounter what seems like a young girl who survived the fire, but turns out to be a werewolf who attacks the group when they're engaged with other foes--a very nasty surprise for do-gooder Level 2 PCs!  Anyway, the PCs will pick up the trail of the missing kids and realise it leads into Darkmoon Vale proper.  There's an interesting mix of random encounters in the forest, and not all of them are combat-based.

Part Three has the PCs reaching Droskar's Crucible (the long-abandoned dwarven monastery) and exploring its first subterranean level.  This is a high-quality, professionally-written dungeon that has a dynamic environment (it's not just a series of monsters hanging out in rooms for the PCs to kill) and a well-developed backstory (about the fall of the monastery, as well as previous adventurers who tried to explore it).  I've seen plenty of mediocre dungeon-based modules where I felt I could do the same thing just as well with a couple of hours' writing, but that's not the case with Crown of the Kobold King.  There was clearly a lot of time and effort put into the place to make it a cohesive, interesting environment.  I should note that this dungeon is *big*.  Level 1 alone has nineteen rooms, with threats ranging from the expected kobolds to a gelatinous cube to multiple traps to various types of undead.  The PCs will encounter (scattered about the level) most of the missing children here as the kids are in the midst of an escape attempt but got split up.  The urgency of the PCs' mission (rescue the kids before they become living sacrifices!) is one of the reasons the difficulty of the module is probably higher than it should be.  It's not the situation where most groups will feel comfortable resting for a night to get back hit points and spells.  In addition, the sheer number of encounters and the Challenge Rating of some of those encounters (CR 4 and CR 5 encounters aren't uncommon) makes me think the intended difficulty is just too high for an average group.  GMs should also prepare carefully, as there's a lot of moving parts to manage.  It's very well-written though!

Part Four has the PCs' exploring the second subterranean level to rescue the last missing kid.  They'll have to confront the kobold king himself, and rescue that kid seconds before he's about to be sacrificed by the tribe's shaman!  It's a very exciting conclusion as written (my group didn't get so far, as they had to make an ignominious panicked retreat long before after encountering a dozen or more kobold warriors in a single chamber).  And again, it's an adventure not for the faint-hearted (there's a classic Indiana Jones-style heart-removal scene) or the weak (the king is CR6!).

Assuming the PCs are successful and return with the kids to Falcon's Hollow, a brief conclusion wraps things up tidily.  The PCs will probably be quite wealthy, as the module includes four custom magical items each priced in the 10,000 to 15,000 gp range.  I have to make special note of a "Campaign Seed" sidebar that talks about the future of these kids--man, is it bleak!  (I'm not complaining, just . . . ironically amused, I guess)

I've already mentioned the brief gazetteer of Falcon's Hollow in the first appendix.  The town reminds me of an Old West frontier town in a lot of respects.  A second appendix details two new monsters that appear in the adventure: a "forge spurned" and a "slurk."  The former is an undead blacksmith sworn to Droskar who adds souls to the chains that wrap around its body and is very cool; the latter is an underground giant fanged toad and is forgettable.

I've harped on the difficulty of the module a lot--I don't see a Level 2 group being successful unless they're particularly min-maxed, a very large group (perhaps bolstered by animal companions, etc.) or have a *lot* of consumable instant healing resources.  But this is a problem easily solvable by instead waiting until the group is Level 3 or even 4 before running it.  It's also an adventure that involves some heavy dungeon exploration, which isn't going to be to every player's taste.  But with those caveats, Crown of the Kobold King is an excellent module.  It has an engaging plot, a setting with depth, and some very memorable encounters.  I definitely recommend running it--just give a little thought to when and for whom.