Avalon Hazards #1 by Maria Smolina is a role playing game supplement published by the Avalon Game Company 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. This is the first supplement in a series intended to add new dangers for characters to encounter.
The supplement is available from RPGNow for $2.99 but was purchased for the reduced price of $1. This is a seven page PDF which lacks bookmarks. One page is the front cover, one page the front matter, one page the Open Game License and one page is an ad for other supplements.
The hazard covered in this supplement is called the Frail Mirage. It starts with around half a page overview of what these are, a magical anomaly with some similarities to haunts, and how they come to be. These mirages are fully usable until shattered, and different mirages will be shattered by different conditions.
Around another half a page describes the general features of all frail mirages, their appearance, size, magical aura and when they are active, which can vary. They can range in size and complexity from a single item to an area filled with many different ones.
Finally, there are four sample frail mirages described, from CR 1 to CR 9. Each gives the mirage’s aura and how they can be shattered, as well as an example of game use.
Avalon Hazards #1 in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and, although they aren’t really needed in a supplement of this brevity, they would have been useful.
The text maintains a two column format and suffers from a common problem seen with supplements from this publisher – very poor proofreading. The text has missing words (primarily filler words such as “the”), incorrect use of plural and singular and the correctly spelled but wrong word used. Spelling isn’t a problem but grammatical errors certainly are. Apart from the colour page backgrounds, there are only a few pieces of filler art.
Even though this is a short supplement, the concept of the frail mirage is actually a very interesting one. It will definitely add a new way of causing problems for players for any GM and the examples of game use in every sample mirage are definitely useful, making it clear how such could function in-game. As with haunts, GMs could also come up with more frail mirages of their own. Perhaps the text on doing so could have been a bit clearer, similar to that for haunts.
Despite the comparatively high price for the supplement’s length, it would probably be worth it if it wasn’t let down so badly by the sheer number of errors in it – more than would be acceptable in a much larger supplement. These detract from the text and make reading it harder than it should be. This was still worth the $1 paid, and probably more, and should be useful for any GM looking to add something new for players. Avalon Hazards #1 can be found by clicking here.
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