I regret to say that I found this adventure very disappointing - even as a free offering.

The layout is difficult to follow. There are several boxed sections with different symbols attached, but nowhere is it explained what these symbols mean. Other AAW adventures contain the same symbols, so perhaps they have a key available somewhere as its own document, but there's no link to it. After some effort, I was able to guess the meanings, however. We have: Read aloud text (but see below), combat encounters, treasure, and some kind of broad "information for the GM".

The text - outside the boxed sections - is primarily written in third person, addressed to the GM. However, several times, it suddenly switches to addressing the players, as if it were read aloud text, despite not being in a box. To put it mildly, this is rather confusing!

Speaking of confusing, the adventure also fails to explain where a critical combat encounter comes from. The party has a dialogue with some crow-related spirits, we get some read-aloud text (properly boxed) describing a longhouse the PCs can now see, there's a nice illustration...and then suddenly a box saying "10 kobolds". No explanation of where they came from. The text just says that "The PCs should find themselves with their backs to the longhouse with a larger body of enemies pushing at them, forcing them into the longhouse for safety". Were the PCs supposed to have been running from these kobolds since the start of the adventure (the first encounter is with another, smaller, group of kobolds)? Or do they emerge from the woods after the encounter? Either makes sense, but I honestly have no idea which one the writer intended.

There are several other areas which have similar failures to explain things. Near the start of the adventure, the PCs are with the crew of a ship, seeking shelter from a storm on the eponymous island. We're told that "In the end, the captain will be sending [the PCs] off alone to venture into the woods to seek shelter". This is never elaborated on, and the PCs instead get led into the wood by a crow spirit that only they can see. I don't know if the GM is expected to improvise the scene based on that one line (in which case, I would need to understand why the captain gives them that instruction) or whether it's an editing glitch from an earlier version.

This crow spirit also has its own issues - the text just assumes that the PCs will follow it, and gives no guidance on what to do if they don't. I understand that some level of player buy-in is necessary for a published adventure, but this spirit shows up part way through the adventure, while the PCs are in the middle of helping with another situation, and after it's been repeatedly emphasised that the island they're on is haunted by dangerous crow spirits that they should be afraid of!

The treasure found in the adventure has no value listed for it. It's listed as things like "various woodcarvings", "furs and pelts" or "damaged longsword". However, this is no mere set dressing - it's explicitly offered to the PCs for helping the spirits!

The plot of the adventure is also problematic. There's an elaborate backstory, which the players never get to find out. Then the whole of the first chapter is essentially a cutscene for the GM to read out, with one place where the players are generously allowed to wander around the ship and look through a spyglass. Quick summary: PCs are on a ship, when a blizzard comes up. The captain decides to seek shelter, but the only place nearby is the eponymous Crow's Rest island, which is haunted for unknown reasons.

On landing, everyone starts unloading supplies (for some reason), and the PCs may or may not be sent off by the captain to find shelter (the text is unclear, as discussed above). They see a white crow sitting on a stack of supplies, which for some reason (never explained, even to the GM) no one except them can see. The PCs follow it, and after a brief skirmish with some kobolds, it turns into a human ghost for just long enough to ask the PCs to follow. Which they were already doing, but whatever. The crow/ghost leads them to an ancient longhouse, where we get a long infodump which still somehow only explains part of the backstory: the inhabitants of the island were attacked by kobolds and a summoned devil, and to protect their souls from that devil, the local druid did a ritual binding their souls to the land. Once the infodump is done, a larger group of kobolds show up out of nowhere, and the PCs are forced into the longhouse. Fortunately it has a protection from evil effect meaning the kobolds can't enter. They then take shelter from the storm while the kobolds place them under siege. No mention of what the rest of the crew do for shelter, since the PCs can't exactly go back for them. The longhouse is missing one of the components for the ritual, which is why the spirits are still around; they ask the PCs to retrieve it. The PCs fight off the kobolds - the spirits help by scaring the kobolds, but no mechanics are given for this. After a disappointing "puzzle" which involves doing exactly what the spirits tell them to do, they retrieve the missing item, return it, and the longhouse disappears. Finally, they have one more encounter with an ice construct made to look like the summoned devil (but which isn't that devil, just to make things more confusing), and return to the ship. End of adventure.

A skilled GM could run a good game from this, but only by using it as rough inspiration, changing the plot and inventing large amounts of content to cover the gaps in the adventure. Which rather defeats the purpose of a premade adventure. This is free, so by all means have a look at it - but don't expect to get much out of it. Not a good advert for AAW, sadly.

This is my first download from AAWGames. The production values are top notch and the adventure introduction and setting are well-detailed.

The adventure itself is atmospheric and moody. I like the consistent dark tone. The encounters can be insanely dangerous, if I'm reading them correctly, but that's par for the course for a published Pathfinder adventure.

I can find no technical flaws in the PDF and the adventure content is consistent and well written. Five stars!

Designed as an introduction to the whole Adventureaweek campaign world, the putative setting of all their adventures (although most can be readily translocated into a suitable part of the campaign world of your choice) this short adventure is also intended to serve as a lead-in to A1: Crypt of the Sun Lord, if you're intending to use that.

The basic concept is simple, and yet an elegant way to get around the constant problem of your character knowing the world he lives in far better than you, his player, does by saying that the characters come from a nearby kingdom which is actively encouraging adventurers to move to an outlying fishing village called Rybalka. It's a wild and dangerous place, so much so that ordinary citizens are reluctant to move there even if offered payment. Clearly some braver souls, some adventurers, are needed!

The way to get there goes across the massive ice-cold Serpent Lake, pretty much an inland sea, and passes a ill-omened island, Crow's Rest Island. Sailors are full of tales about people who have been shipwrecked there, tales of horror and haunting far worse than merely being shipwrecked and having to survive.

There's a comprehensive backstory to inform you about what's really going on, and then we get into the adventure proper which starts with the characters aboard ship... and there's a storm blowing up! The ship is swiftly covered in snow to the extent that the captain decides that it is less risky to stop at Crow's Rest Island than it is to continue the voyage. And so it begins...

Although quite simple, the adventure is atmospheric and there's plenty of material to aid you in setting the scene, snow-covered and brooding with a mysterious crow that somehow only the party can see. Beautiful illustrations and lush maps provide visual cues to supplement the descriptions. There's plenty to do, with negotiations with spirits as well as a couple of brawls... and the adventurers should emerge back on shore as the storm dies down and their ship is ready to resume its voyage. But, boy, they will have some tales to tell of their exploits!

If looking to start a campaign with a bang, this ought to fit the bill, excitement a-plenty yet all perfectly do-able by first level characters.

There is nothing to this file it is just a link to their website.

This module is 23 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, leaving us with a total of 19 pages of content, so let's check this out!

Now this being an adventure review, the following review contains SPOILERS. Potential players may wish to jump to the conclusion.

All right, still here? After a short introduction to the area in which it is set in the default campaign setting of AdventureaWeek.com - essentially, the PCs will be people of the Klavekian kingdom, largest of the human realms and sent to the icy frontier of the kingdom to help the settlement Rybalka, which lies right at the border of Vikmordere-territory: Feared savages that could be considered a wild blending of Viking and Native American cultures. That out of the way, the module kicks off without much ado - the PCs are traveling en route to Rybalka for fame and fortune and on their way, they'll need to pass the notorious "Crow's Rest Island".

When passing the island on their ship of Vikmordere-build (which comes fully mapped in gorgeous detailed full color with maps (on deck, below deck, in a snow-storm and in full-blown snow-storm - awesome), they are forced ashore by the weather and see a weird white crow. In the island's woods, they encounter a party of kobolds and it is also here, the PCs can start to piece together what has happened here. When kobolds were washed ashore on this island, their shaman summoned an ice demon to get rid of the local Vikmordere population. The wild men, confronted with the demonic entity faced annihilation and in order to save them, an adopted Vikmordere attempted a ritual that was interrupted by the kobolds. This ritual gone haywire has trapped the spirits of the Vikmordere on the island. The lavishly illustrated village of the Vikmordere contains the remnants of the kobolds and there, amid ghostly visions, the PCs can secure the missing item for the ritual and help the spirits of the dead find peace.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to AaW's latest 2-column standard with its more streamlined boxes and easier to read fonts and the artworks in full color range from awesome (vista of the village) to not-so-awesome (cover). As I've come to expect from AaW, the cartography is simply stellar and especially the weather and its effect on the ship is AWESOME. A great idea and something I'd love to see used in other modules as well. If you register at Adventureaweek.com, you can also download for free all artworks (including a handouts through a spyglass), profiles of the AaW-iconics, high-res jpegs of all the maps, png-tokens for NPCs and adversaries and herolab-files. While usually I would complain about a lack of a backgroundless version of the pdf, this module is free, so it gets a pass on this one. The pdf is extensively fitted with nested bookmarks.

There are sometimes modules that as written are not too exciting, but spark the imagination via iconic locales, nice presentation etc. and this is one of them: The location presented in the module is cool, creepy and offers quite some potential for expansion by the DM - and expanded it should be, for the simple encounters fall flat of the awesomeness of the backdrop. Indeed, I wished this was not a free prequel module, but rather a full-blown haunting-investigation. Think about it: Traps in the wood, a deserted village, the sense of being watched, mysterious crows, weather worsening and keeping the PCs stranded on the place and then, the strange hauntings begin - every DM worth his salt can construct a complex investigation from this yarn instead of handing out the solution to what happened on a silver platter to the PCs. Were this a commercial module, that would exactly be what I'd complain about. It's FREE, though, and every module that excites me enough to even contemplate expanding it like I just described is worth downloading and in fact, does a great job. Were I only to rate the module as it can be seen in the pdf, I'd probably go for 4 or 3 stars, depending on a hypothetical price. But since this pdf is free, comes with good production values and sparks one's imagination, I'll instead settle on a solid verdict of 5 stars - come on, it's free and you know you at least want to scavenge the maps. ;)

Endzeitgeist out.

My original review stated that there was an 9 page PDF (it was named A0_Crows_Rest_Island_v.demo.pdf). This issue has been addressed - the new downloadable PDF is named A0_Crows_Rest_Island_V.F3.pdf and has the entire adventure. Thanks.

First of all, I had no trouble downloading the pdf adventure. All 23 pages are there as promised.

This is a very well written starter game with a lot of background information, an interesting storyline and plot, terrific artwork, and some very nice maps. I was even surprised to see my bearskin rug in one of the maps. It's always nice to see my stuff in use. As a bonus, these maps are available for download from their website for printing and VTT use.

Well done!