Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/08/20/tabletop-review-teeth-of-the-storm-pathfinder/

I don’t really play or pick up a lot of Pathfinder products, but Teeth of the Storm intrigued me. Ravenloft was always my favorite setting for Dungeons & Dragons and since Wizards of the Coast has done nothing with the franchise save turn it into a board game, I pick up the few things Gothic-Fantasy items published in hopes that it recaptures some of that 90s magic. So far, all I’ve really found are the #30 Haunts series that Rite Publishing puts out. Still, I needed something to hold me over until Shadows of Esteren came out, and Teeth of the Storm looked like it would fit the bill. The end result was a very well written adventure that did indeed feel like it was ripped from the era of Second Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, albeit with a pretty punishing difficulty level. Although there aren’t a lot of monsters in the adventure, Teeth of the Storm‘s two big encounters are close to having constant one hit kills, one of which (a troll) neither fits the classic horror genre nor is an appropriate encounter for Level 1 characters. Still, the end result is a very memorable adventure and should set the tone wonderfully as the first adventure in a gothic-horror fantasy campaign for your Pathfinder playing pals.

The story starts off with the characters encountering a smashed carriage. There is only one survivor – the daughter of a wealthy merchant. As the players attempt to help her, the skeletons of the ravaged corpses tear forth from their once fleshy forms and begin to attack! That’s a pretty dramatic way to kick off an adventure, don’t you think? From there, the PCs discover the terrible curse of the ancient Klaustad family and are enlisted by the clan patriarch to dispatch the horror plaguing the countryside. Thrown in a troll with severe OCD stalking someone affiliated with the party and the characters have a two very touch opponents to deal with – especially since they are only first level in this adventure. Yes, you’re dealing with a troll and a creature with energy drain (possibly at the same time for an unlucky or slow witted group) which equals insta-death if the slightest blow is hit. Thankfully, the adventure does provide ways to cushion the mortality rate if needed, but at the same time, it also offers ways to dramatically increase it if you feel like being an extra cruel GM.

The adventure unfolds over eight acts, and seven of the eight are very well done, with pacing akin to what you would expect from a horror series or Hammer film like Captain Kronos. The only black mark on the adventure is the fifth act, and it’s a pretty big stinker. It’s this weird race thing where the players have to both outrun and outwit the very angry troll chasing them. It’s not very well laid out in the adventure, and in actual practice, it just doesn’t flow at all. It grinds the adventure to a halt and you end up roll-playing instead of role-playing. I thought it was terrible and my advice would be to chuck out this act entirely. Expurgate it like a Gannet from Olsen’s Standard Book of British Birds if you will.

Besides the adventure itself, Teeth of the Storm comes with five pregenerated characters and several maps to help enhance the overall experience. I’m not really a fan of pregens, but this is a good idea, as you can then use the adventure as a one-shot to test your gaming group and see if this is the sort of affair they’d like to see a whole campaign built around. The adventure also sports some really nice artwork. The character portraits for each NPC (and pregen) are well done, although the cover is a bit too cartoony for the seriousness of the adventure. I felt like the thing on the cover was about to go, “GARFIELD!!!!!”

Overall, Teeth of the Storm is an excellent adventure across the board. You’ll want to make sure whoever is running it, as well as the players, are looking for a more Gothic-oriented campaign though. Something like this doesn’t work as a one-off, especially if you play to have more fantastical than folkloric creatures doing battle with the team’s PCs. It’s also very much an adventure built on ambiance rather than combat or dungeon crawling, so if most of your friends just want to hack and slash their way through an adventure, this probably isn’t the best choice for them, as they will all die horribly. I personally found it to be a well told and gripping experience, and it was a fine substitute for the Ravenloft campaign setting. I’m definitely going to keep Run Amok Games on my radar thanks to Teeth of the Storm. Who knows? If they do enough of these, I might have the perfect Ravenloft substitute after all! With a price tag of only $5.99 for the electronic version, this is definitely a great way to see if you (and your friends) would enjoy a gothic-horror campaign that doesn’t involve a White Wolf system. This is one of the better Pathfinder adventures I’ve seen this year, and again, I’m hoping to see Run Amok continue making these types of adventures, as there is definitely a market for them

This adventure is 38 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 35 pages of content, so let's check this out!

This being an adventure-review, this text contains a bunch of major SPOILERS - potential players should jump to the conclusion.

Still here? All right! This module kicks off when the PCs are finding their way through the lands of the mysterious Klaustad family and happen upon the carnage of the aftermath of a dread attack on a retinue of guards on a stone bridge while the nightly storm is pouring torrential rain down on them. Rescuing the beautiful maiden Alayna Vedellic (who gets a stellar piece of b/w-artwork, as do all major NPCs in this pdf) pinned beneath the carriage - worse, the dead start to rise and the PCs will have to defeat the rising guards while keeping them from feasting upon Alayna's flesh. It should be noted that the encounter comes with its own map, complete with grids for use with miniatures. Worse, the PCs hear a bellow from under the bridge, first sign of a bridge troll awakening - the PCs better depart hastily with the lady to the (again, fully mapped) Gravedigger's Rest, an inn led by an almost gypsy-like crone (with again, a great artwork) when Lord Klaustad, the local reclusive nobleman shows up - essentially as a vampire red herring for the PCs, but cool in that he interrogates them. The bridge troll meanwhile has awakened -drawn by the scent of his quarry, he circles the inn, but doesn't dare enter -for now. Strangely, he seems to be after Lord Klaustad, though he hasn't crossed the bridge in weeks and Alayna described her attacker as medium-sized, not such a hulking brute.

Lord Klaustad thankfully comes clean - he hands the PCs equipment and tells them of a harrowing tale- the attacker is his undead son, returned from the grave via a dire curse in spite of the Lord's precautions - he wants his son put to eternal rest, preferably while staying alive. After receiving some folk charms (or denying them), the PCs will have to figure out how to outrun the troll to the high road where he dares not follow. A multitude of plans and a clever exploitation of his fixation on his quarry may provide the PCs just the edge they need to outrun the deadly brute via a chase with 10 obstacles. After that, the horror does not subside - undead Holst Klaustad waits at the bridge and without the folk charms, one attack is enough to kill a first level PC! Once the wight is vanquished, the troll takes a bite of his undead quarry and goes to sleep, but the madness is not over - they still have to make sure the undead horror is stopped once and for all: At the local cemetery (also fully mapped, including a cool isometric version), they will have to deal with deadly lightning, giant maggots, negotiate with the creepy groundskeeper and enter the crypt of Holst without being killed by his trap. Of course, evil is not easily laid to rest and he returns in a vampiric misty form to haunt the PCs once again if they attempt to lay him to his final rest - hopefully, they use the sacred seal received from Harald to good effect.

Evil does not die easily and the epilogue hints at the troll becoming infused with Holst's essence, making for a great sequel-idea as well as the eponymous "It's not over..."-ending. I wouldn't mind a direct sequel... The pdf also has information on scaling the adventure and comes with 5 pre-gens, all of which get mug-shots. Furthermore, there is a cool innovation interspersed throughout the pages of this module - "Ultra-horror sidebars". These are made for sadistic bastard DMs like yours truly and are guaranteed to make a tough module ridiculously hard, challenging even the best of players - E.g. touching the cemetery gate will result in the storm hit it with lightning, potentially roasting PCs alive. Another option would be to have the troll ALWAYS be one step behind the slowest PC in the chase -deadly, yes, but oh so rewarding and guaranteed to amp up the adrenaline for your PCs and players alike - just make sure your players are all right with characters dying left and right for every bad decision. These boxes are optional, mind you, but I'd still suggest you take a look at them!

The pdf also comes with a second pdf containing the full-color maps of the bridge and the cemetery in a blown-up version so you can print them out and use them with miniatures. The maps are detailed, beautiful and awesome, though I would have loved to see the isometric b/w-maps of the locations as player-handouts in large as well.

Conclusion: Editing is top-notch, though a slightly annoying formatting glitch has crept into the statblocks and rules-information, showing a plethora of letters, mostly "l"s as bold - this, however, is a reader-glitch and does not show up on my printed out version of the module - just something you should be aware of. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly 2-column b/w-standard and the original mugshots for all the NPCs alongside the gorgeous maps are simply awesome -props to Joshua Bennett, Chaz Kemp and Blake Wilkie for doing such an excellent job. The pdf comes fully bookmarked.

I'll come right out and say what all of you who follow my reviews probably all know: My heart belongs to Gothic Horror modules. I like my fantasy dark and gritty and while I enjoy high-fantasy forays, my one true love, genre-wise will always be the dark and creepy. So is this a yarn of gothic horror? Yes and no - on the one hand, it is definitely a horror adventure that will provide ample adrenaline and make your PCs feel hunted and as if the world turned against them (if using the extremely hard ultra-horror version detailed in the boxes). On the other hand, it is not especially gothic in its build up of suspension - this module drops the PCs in a nightmare, kicks up the gears and relentlessly pushes them to their absolute limits. Yes, there are downtime phases, but the horror elicited from this module is not too subtle. But oh boy, it works AWESOME! If you've played Resident Evil 4, you probably can get what this module does, pacing-wise: While there are less threatening encounters in here, dread and destruction always loom and the mood set in the module is superb. This may not be a gothic horror module in the classic sense (mind you, most Ravenloft modules didn't manage that), but it IS a stellar horror module.

Add to that the joyously sadistic ultra-horror options to ramp up the body-count and we have yet again a truly stellar module by Ron Lundeen and, if I may say so, once again an instant classic. Especially taking the low price into account and the quality you get for your bucks, I can wholeheartedly recommend this excellent module. My final verdict will be 5 stars plus endzeitgeist seal of approval.

Endzeitgeist out.