Warning: Review contains spoilers.
When I was first heard that FASA was closing down the Earthdawn line in 1998, my gaming group and I were both devastated. We had been playing Earthdawn near constantly since it was first released. After all, most of us were veterans of Dungeons & Dragons and looking for something meatier and well, we found it in Earthdawn.
When I first heard that FASA had licensed out my favorite RPG to a small company known as Living Room Games, a tiny glimmer of hope showed through. I do have to say that when I found out that their first product was an adventure I was skeptical, but knew I would end up buying it anyway on the grounds of “Hey! It’s Earthdawn!”
Why am I telling you this? Simple reason. To let you know that I love Earthdawn. Earthdawn, to me is what all roleplaying products should be. I have loved each and every Earthdawn product that was released. So needless to say, I’m a bit biased towards Earthdawn products.
Since this is an adventure, I’m going to assume at least basic knowledge of the Earthdawn world.
Now on to the real review.
Path of Deception is an adventure designed for Adepts of Third to Fifth Circle. In the adventure, the temporary head of the Circle Path Company (Remiel)hires the characters to find out what happened to his sister (Yuriel), the true head of the household. Yuriel is a swordmaster adept herself and a bit of a restless sort and through some loophole in the rules and regulations of the Merchant House managed to slip away to join an adventuring group, the Far Striders. As typical in an Earthdawn adventure, things are not what they seem (as you can probably figure out from the title, Path of Deception).
The players start up in typical investigative format. They first have to find the trail. I had a slight problem with this section of the adventure in that it required way too much in character knowledge of the who’s who in Haven/Parlainth, where the adventure takes place. At one point, after the characters talk to Vardeghul (the honest tradeswoman) she tells them that one of the important clues is a silver plaque with a riddle on it and that the plaque was in the possession of one Tolemy Faer. However, not once was there any indication of where one might find Tolemy Faer… that is until the next chapter where it’s assumed the players have already FOUND Tolemy Faer at the Restless Troll tavern. Admittedly, if the players didn’t go to the biggest bar in town, they deserve to not find this trail, but a little hint to the Gamemaster would have been nice.
The adventure jumps unexpectedly in the next chapter where suddenly the characters are having a formal dinner with their employers… which of course leads to a poisoning attempt, leading the players to believe, correctly so, that someone doesn’t want Yuriel found.
After the party gets into Parlainth itself, the adventure is fairly straightforward. They investigate a group of slavers that the Far Striders assaulted to search for more clues, which eventually ends them up at a cult of Vestrial, one of the Mad Passions.
In a printed adventure I have certain expectations. I expect a lot of the legwork to be done for me. After all, that’s the point of printed adventures isn’t it? Something for the Gamemaster to run when he doesn’t have the time to prepare his own material. I however, felt this adventure was simply an outline for an adventure more than an adventure itself. While I can work really well with an adventure outline, I expected a bit more out of this adventure.
The overall plot was fascinating and put me right back into my Earthdawn Gamemaster mode, but the execution was poor and thus ended up with the ratings it did. My recommendation: buy this if you’re an Earthdawn completist, like myself, or are willing to lay down the $14.00 for a slightly more detailed than usual adventure outline but otherwise steer clear.
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