A00: Crow’s Rest Island is a role playing game supplement published by AAW Games for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result. The adventure is also available in versions for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition and Fantasy Grounds.
The supplement is available as a 23 page Pay What You Want PDF, standard colour softcover print on demand book and premium colour softcover print on demand book from DriveThruRPG. The POD books are both PWYW but in these cases there will be a minimum printed cost for them. The PDF is the version reviewed and one page is the front cover, one the front matter, half a page the Table of Contents and one page the Open Game License. There is also a zip that comes with Hero Lab files, including maps, tokens and images.
The introductory text explains that the adventure is intended to be a prelude to A1: Crypt of the Sun Lord.
Important Locations has a map showing the Kingdoms of Adventureaweek.com and briefly covers several locations.
The Introduction explains that the PCs hail from Klavek Kingdom, which is getting people to relocate to a fishing village in Vikmordere territory. A sidebar explains that it can be placed elsewhere.
Adventure Background explains how the village on Crow’s Rest Island was overrun by kobolds but the druid managed to stop the villagers from having their souls stolen by a devil. However, the island now has a reputation for being haunted.
The Adventure Synopsis explains the characters are forced to make stop on the island and the Adventure Hook explains that they are on Serpent Lake where the island is located.
In the adventure, the ship they are on encounters heavy snow and has to make landfall. On the island, the characters encounter a white crow who transforms into one of the villagers and explains what needs doing to free them. They will have to deal with kobold attacks.
There are two new magic items, but neither are laid out in the Pathfinder manner and an encounter index with the various stats.
A00: Crow’s Rest Island in Review
The PDF is well bookmarked with major and minor sections linked. The Table of Contents is to a similar level of depth and is hyperlinked. Navigation is very good. The text maintains a two-column full colour format and appeared to be free of errors. There is a lot of artwork in the supplement, from a ship gradually getting covered in snow to encounters to full colour maps to scenes and most of it appears to be custom. Presentation is excellent and the zip files contains copies of the artwork.
The adventure is pretty simple; the characters land on an island, are told what is wrong and what they need to do to fix it and then fix it. This hardly requires much in the way of skill, though a GM could easily make it much more difficult, because the location given is interesting; a haunted village on an island with an unsavoury reputation. As an introductory module, it is serviceable, but not much more though it could easily be. However, it is also beautifully done with lots of artwork and moreover is Pay What You Want. A00: Crow’s Rest Island can be found by clicking here.
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