Reign of Winter Player's Guide

When players sit down to create characters for an adventure path, it helps to have an idea what the adventure path is about and what kinds of characters will best fit in. After all, if you create a swashbuckling pirate character and the campaign ends up set entirely in a desert without a sailing ship or water in sight, you might be just a little disappointed. The campaign will likely end up not being much fun as a result. With some adventure paths, this is more of a concern, as they have specific themes or centre around specific locations. This is why there’s a player’s guide to accompany each adventure path.

Reign of Winter is a very linear adventure path. One event leads into the next in a somewhat preordained manner, and given its constant movement from one location to the next, there’s not a lot of opportunity for the PCs to stop and do their own thing. There’s certainly no opportunity for side quests. For this reason, characters need to be well-suited for what’s ahead, and their backgrounds need to reflect their abilities (although there are otherwise very few restrictions on appropriate character backgrounds and origins). The Reign of Winter Player’s Guide helps players create such useful characters, and it accomplishes this quite admirably.

Reign of Winter - The Witch Queen's Revenge

It has all been in preparation for this. The player characters have travelled to exotic lands and distant worlds, all to find and free Baba Yaga and put an end to the eternal winter that threatens to engulf all of Golarion. They have finally found Baba Yaga, but in order to free her from her prison they must complete a series of trials and face her daughter, Queen Elvanna, who desires her mother’s power for herself.

The Witch Queen’s Revenge by Greg A. Vaughan brings to a close Reign of Winter, which has been a very ambitious adventure path. It has involved a few aspects that some people may not fully like mixed with their fantasy (a little bit of science fiction and some modern-ish technology), but it has done so in often brilliant ways. This final adventure has the unenviable task that all final adventure path volumes have: that of bringing all the loose ends together and tying them off in a satisfying manner, while simultaneously providing a fun and exciting adventure in its own right. For the most part, The Witch Queen’s Revenge manages this wonderfully. It’s an excellent adventure, albeit a touch railroaded, and its final resolution could potentially frustrate some players. There are a couple other issues as well, and as such, it’s not the best of the entire adventure path (that honour definitely goes to Rasputin Must Die!), but it’s far from a weak adventure and it finishes off what has been a truly excellent adventure path overall.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Reign of Winter - Rasputin Must Die!

I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while. In fact, a few months back, I even wrote a post about how much I was looking forward to it. I said then that it had the potential to be either a complete disaster or the most amazing thing ever. After all, mixing Pathfinder-style fantasy with historical Earth is not an easy task. There are all kinds of difficulties that have to be considered, not the least of which is the fact that the very attempt is bound to turn some people off in the first place. Mixing genres is just not some people’s cup of tea. But even for those who enjoy mixing genres, there’s still a lot that could go wrong. Well, of the two possibilities I suggested, it turns out not to have been a complete disaster. Indeed, Rasputin Must Die! by Brandon Hodge may well be one of the most amazing things ever! It is without a doubt one of the best adventures I’ve ever had the pleasure to read, and I dare say it’s likely to be long remembered as an all-time classic.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Reign of Winter - The Frozen Stars

As Reign of Winter has progressed, the PCs have moved farther and farther away from their homes as they follow the trail of Baba Yaga. They’ve gone to cold-swept Irrisen, then to wintry Iobaria. But while Iobaria is far away from their starting point, it’s still on Golarion. In The Frozen Stars, the fourth instalment of the adventure path, the PCs travel to Triaxus, one of the other planets in Golarion’s system, currently going through its very long winter. There they get involved in local politics and an ongoing war. Written by Matthew Goodall, it is an excellent adventure with excitement, interesting characters, and an exotic, alien location.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Reign of Winter - Maiden, Mother, Crone

In every adventure path, there’s always at least one major dungeon. Even in much more story-based adventure paths, there’s a volume that is primarily a dungeon crawl. In Reign of Winter, that volume would be the third, Maiden, Mother, Crone by Tim Hitchcock. In the adventure, the PCs take their first trip in Baba Yaga’s Dancing Hut and find themselves in Iobaria, where they must locate the next set of clues that will ultimately lead them to the imprisoned Baba Yaga.

Of the three volumes of Reign of Winter so far, this one is unfortunately the weakest. That’s not to say it’s bad—I actually rather like it—but it’s not as good as the first two. Its major weakness is that it suffers from the static randomness that so many dungeon crawls suffer from. Despite a great backstory, its dungeon (or rather, dungeons) still feels like a place where the denizens just sort of sit there waiting for the PCs to arrive and kill them, and that spoils what is overall a great framework for an adventure.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Reign of Winter - The Shackled Hut

In The Shackled Hut by Jim Groves, the second part of the Reign of Winter adventure path, the PCs set out to find Baba Yaga’s Dancing Hut as the next step in their quest to rescue Baba Yaga herself. Much like The Snows of Summer, the first part of the AP, The Shackled Hut is a very linear adventure, but one that nonetheless feels natural in its progression and thus PCs won’t likely feel overly railroaded by it. The adventure contains a wonderful mix of dark fairytale elements and interesting characters. Although many of those characters are there and gone in only a short amount of time, they all have fully detailed backgrounds and motivations, making them feel a part of a living and exciting world. This is not a perfect adventure (indeed, I have a few issues with its resolution in particular), but it is still a very good adventure and a great continuation of the adventure path.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Reign of Winter - The Snows of Summer

When I first heard about Reign of Winter, I expected it to be what I suspect most other people expected it to be: an adventure path centred around the end of the 100-year rule of Irrisen’s current queen, Elvanna, and her attempts to avoid her mother replacing her. I expected it would deal heavily with Irrisen’s conflict with the Linnorm Kingdoms and probably involve PCs who begin in the Linnorm Kingdoms. I was only partially right. It is about the end of Elvanna’s rule. Shortly after it was announced, Paizo representatives started gently letting people on their messageboards know that this adventure path is not the Irrisen AP. Rather, it’s the Baba Yaga AP, and as Baba Yaga is about a lot more than Irrisen, so is this adventure path. This is an adventure path that will go to a lot of different, unusual, and very unexpected places.

After I got over my initial surprise that the Linnorm Kingdoms wouldn’t feature at all, I began to feel very intrigued by the possibilities of Reign of Winter. It’s an ambitious adventure path, full of creative, but crazy ideas, as the forthcoming fifth part can attest to (warning: potential spoilers in that link). It’s an adventure path that could turn out to be one of the most wonderful and memorable adventure paths so far. Of course, it remains to be seen whether it can live up to that potential, but the possibility is at least there. Unfortunately, it could also turn out to be a complete disaster.

The opening adventure, The Snows of Summer by Neil Spicer is fairly tame compared to what is to come. Indeed, it’s kind of a run-of-the-mill adventure in many ways, one that starts with only a touch of the unusual, much like many adventures will start. But it gradually reveals more and more snippets of information to the PCs, slowly making them realize that what starts as a rescue mission is really much, much more. Overall, The Snows of Summer is a very good adventure—not the greatest ever, but one that should sufficiently whet the PCs’ appetites for what is to come and make them eager to save the world.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Reign of Winter: A Look Ahead

Generally, I write about Pathfinder products after they're published, not before. After all, I can't review something that I haven't read. However, this caught my attention, and I just felt I had to post about it. The Shattered Star Adventure Path comes to a close later this month (and expect my review of part 5, Into the Nightmare Rift very soon). Up next is Reign of Winter, dealing with the change of rulership that happens every 100 years in the icy realm of Irrisen, when Baba Yaga returns to place a new daughter on the throne.

We've known for some time that the fifth part of this adventure path would be titled, Rasputin Must Die! There has been much speculation about this title. Baba Yaga is a real-world mythological figure with a firm presence in the fictional world of Golarion. Could the Rasputin of the title be the real-world Rasputin? Well, at long last, Paizo has officially announced Rasputin Must Die!, and along with it an official synopsis (see the link for the synopsis).

Yes, the Pathfinder Adventure Path is going to Earth during World War I.

Paizo has taken many risks with their adventure paths and done many new and unique things. This is the sort of thing that could be either a total disaster or the most amazing thing ever. However, I think there's every reason to trust that this will be the most amazing thing ever.

I want to run this adventure path, and I haven't even read it. That's pretty impressive, Paizo.