A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement The Asylum Stone

The Asylum Stone is the third, #63, part of the Shattered Star Adventure Path from Paizo Publishing. This is a supplement for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and, as such, is covered by the Open Game License with some parts considered to be Open Game Content as a result. This continues on from Curse of the Lady’s Light and is an adventure for 8th level characters who are expected to be well into 10th level by its end. The Adventure Path then continues in Beyond the Doomsday Door.

The PDF is available from the Paizo site for $13.99 but was purchased at a greatly reduced price as part of a special bundle. It is also available as a printed book from sites such as Amazon. The PDF is the version reviewed and has 100 pages with two being the front and back covers, two the front matter, one the Table of Contents, half a page being the Open Game License and four being ads. A second, five-page PDF has interactive maps of the locations for use by players.

Inside what would be the front and rear covers of the printed book are two short adventure hooks and two monuments that grant boons.

Return to the City of Strangers is the foreword by the designer. It mentions City of Strangers as a useful resource for expanding the adventure, as the designer also wrote that supplement.

The Asylum Stone is the adventure itself and starts with a single page listing the adventure parts and advancement track. Adventure Background explains that the City of Strangers, Kaer Maga, was created by the Runelord of Greed as a prison colony and decided to place the stolen Shard of Gluttony within it. A summary of what happens in the adventure follows.

Part One: Up a River has the characters travelling to Kaer Maga by river from Magnimar. There is an encounter on the river itself, as well as one on the way into the city.

Part Two: City of Strangers has the characters in the city and looking for a guide. This leads them to some trolls and the exploration of a manse looking for an abducted troll to free them.

Part Three: The Undercity has the characters arrive at the library known as the Therassic Spire, where they are told about a failed expedition sent into the lower realms. The characters then follow that mission down into the Undercity.

Part Four: The Black Keep has the characters travel to a pocket realm, the domain of the headless rider from the cover.

Concluding the Adventure briefly wraps things up; they may proceed immediately to the next adventure or return to the Pathfinder Lodge, report and, for those who are members of the Pathfinder Society, gain fame.

The Appendix starts with the NPC Gallery which extensively details three NPCs, two of them potential allies, one the main enemy of this module. This is followed by Shattered Star Treasures, which has the new magic items found.

Gangs of Kaer Maga starts by briefly covering several groups before moving on to more detailed coverage of three factions encountered during the adventure. Each of these factions also has adventure hooks, should the characters get more deeply involved with them.

Missions in Magnimar explains the struggle between running sandbox adventures and linear stories and that this chapter has a number of plot hooks, each of which is covered in a paragraph, as well as three full encounters in Magnimar, that can be added to a Varisian-based adventure path or campaign, where Magnimar is frequently visited, such as this one. The material expands on that in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Magnimar, City of Monuments. The full encounters cover a couple of pages each, have a mapped location and in two cases additional plot hooks.

Pathfinder’s Journal: Light of a Distant Star 3 of 6 is the third part of a piece of fiction set in Riddleport.

Bestiary starts with an encounter table for Kaer Maga and three special encounters. This is followed by four new monsters.

Next Month has an overview of what’s in the next issue.

The Asylum Stone in Review

The PDF is well bookmarked with major and minor sections linked. The Table of Contents only covers the major chapters. Navigation is good. The text maintains a two-column colour format and appeared to be free of errors. There are a lot of colour illustrations that appear to be custom, up to half a page in size, including for every monster and magic item. Presentation is good.

Unusually for adventure paths, which tend to have a distinctly linear approach, this supplement has quite a few different side quests and hooks that could take place, not only the inside covers but Gangs of Kaer Maga and Missions in Magnimar. Rather unfortunately, many of those don’t take place in the city the characters are actually visiting. Still, they can be used, but should be used with a different part of the adventure. This is a nice extra, but rather strangely located in the path. There are quite a few references to the City of Strangers supplement and using it to expand the adventure; in fact, it’s referred to rather a bit too much, making the adventure seem a bit incomplete without access to the supplement. The background material pretty much just provides some useful information on Kaer Maga’s gangs that those with access to the supplement probably have. The adventure itself is decent enough. The Asylum Stone continues the adventure path in workmanlike fashion.