The King’s Trail by Mike Myler is a role playing game supplement published by Fat Goblin 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 supplement is available as a 39-page PDF from DriveThruRPG for $1.95 but was purchased at a reduced price as part of a special bundle. One page is the front cover, one the front matter, one the table of contents and one the Open Game License.
The History of Archosia is a timeline for the city; Knowledge (history) checks can help characters learn some of this.
Adventure Background explains that the current king of Archosia has gone missing. It gives a synopsis of the adventure, several adventure hooks to get characters involved and a sidebar explains that circumstances mean that there can be a lot of hostile NPCs.
New Magic Item has a new item that’s focal to the adventure. A table following this lists people by groups, the level to which they are corrupted and commands they have been given.
Chapter 1: Arriving in the City of Prodigious Trade has the characters arrive and the city’s stats. There’s also a new city quality, related to apprentice enchanters and the chance of anomalies from magic items created by apprentices. Thieves in the city are covered as well as how the foe might try to interfere with characters.
Chapter 2: Exploring Achosia covers the various areas of the city with descriptions, details of what might be available and some NPCs that can be interacted with.
Chapter 3: Suspicious Subdina Castle covers the various locations in the castle.
Chapter 4: Uncovering the Enigma has the characters figuring out what’s going on.
Chapter 5: The Hour of Achosia has the final conflict.
Chapter 6: The Gate of the City looks at the three main results of the adventure, from complete success to complete failure.
Index has a table of NPC types with their relevant entries in the rulebooks. Following this, important NPCs are given their own descriptions and stat blocks.
The final three pages of content have maps of the city, an important location and the castle.
The King’s Trail in Review
The PDF is bookmarked with major and minor sections linked. The table of contents is to a similar level of depth and is hyperlinked. Navigation is good. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be mostly free of error. As well as the colour maps, there are colour illustrations up to full page in size. Presentation is good.
This is in some ways a curious adventure. Much of it is investigation-based, before the final confrontation. However, thanks to the current circumstances, there is a potential for conflict, either physical or just problem causing, all over the city. The city itself is reasonably well detailed, and with some modifications could be dropped into many settings, perhaps becoming an independent city-state that can be reused afterwards, which is useful, especially as the adventure is quite reasonably priced. The King’s Trail can be found by clicking here.
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