Review of Risen from the Sands

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Saturday, June 21st is Free RPG Day ‘14 and with it comes a slew of new and interesting little releases. They can usually be divided between tasters for new games that will be released at Gen Con this forthcoming August and support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera. In general, the tasters for the new, ‘hot’ games are highly anticipated and on the day itself, in high demand, but come the day, it would be remiss of us to ignore the less-in-demand titles. Many of these it should be made clear, are worth your time and effort to make it to your friendly, local gaming store to get hold of a copy.

Risen from the Sands is one such title. It is a module for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, designed for character of fourth level and at just sixteen pages long can be played through in a session. It comes with four pre-generated adventurers and makes use of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game core book, Pathfinder Advanced Class Guide, Pathfinder Bestiary, Pathfinder Bestiary 3, and Pathfinder Bestiary 4. It takes place in Osirion, the Ancient Egypt analogue for Golarion, the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game setting, and a number of supplements may be useful, though not necessary. These include Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Lost Kingdoms, Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Osirion, Legacy of Pharaohs, and Pathfinder Player Companion: People of the Sand.

The adventure takes the adventurers into the deserts of Osirion where great sands have kept hidden the tombs and secrets of the ancient peoples and pharaohs for millennia. Recently those sans have parted and revealed a pyramid reputed to be the tomb of the legendary Pharaoh of Sphinxes. Word of this has spread far and wide, and tomb raiders, scholars, and glory seekers want the credit of having explored inside the great tomb and brought back its secrets. The player characters are of course the first to reach the pyramid. What will they discover inside its halls and crypts? Can they avoid the traps that are the hallmark of every pyramid architect? Will they survive the legacy of the Pharaoh of Sphinxes?

As an adventure, Risen from the Sands stands in isolation, though its location in Osirion is given. If the GM wants to get his player characters to the pyramid’s location, he will have to create such adventures himself, perhaps using the sourcebooks already mentioned. The adventure begins with the player characters standing outside the only entrance to the pyramid. It consists of just eighteen locations, and as a tomb is linear in design. Further, as you would expect, these rooms are filled with traps and Egyptian-themed undead, plus a puzzle or two. Egyptian-themed adventures have been part of fantasy roleplaying ever since Judges Guild’s Dark Tower and TSR’s I3, Pharaoh as the more recent Egyptian Adventures: Hamunaptra from Green Ronin Publishing. Risen from the Sands is a decent entry in that sub-genre of fantasy roleplaying adventures. It is a fairly straightforward affair, with some nice little surprises for the players and their characters. That said, it is not as fun, or say as inventive as Paizo Publishing’s earlier offerings for Free RPG Day, such as the entertaining We Be Goblins! .

The four characters included in Risen from the Sands are a Bloodrager, who draws upon his blood for element power and a berserker-like rage; an Investigator, an adventuring scholar capable of spotting traps, using alchemical-fuelled spells, and using his knowledge to great effect; a Swashbuckler, who lives a charmed life and fights with panache to dodge and deliver precise blows; and a Warpriest, who can cast Clerical spells and enhance his companions’ understanding of combat. They presented without any background, which would have been a more involving addition for the players. Each of the four showcases a new Class from the forthcoming Pathfinder Advanced Class Guide.

Physically, Risen from the Sands is as well presented as you would expect for title from Paizo Publishing. As an adventure, Risen from the Sands is serviceable and should provide a session’s worth of tomb raiding.