***Spoilers Alert**

This adventure is divided in 4 parts. The adventure begins with the characters arriving in Ormkirk and being offered a job by townmaster Thaddeus Travail: rescue townsfolk from the kobolds lairing in the nearby hills. The characters can ask around to gather more information and doing so may arouse suspicion about the townmaster’s true motives. This part is relatively short and sadly, no map of the town is provided, and we do not get settlement stats. A few other locations are mentioned, but everything is left to be expanded as needed. While not necessary to the completion of the adventure, it would have added some depth to the town to have such information. It does however, leave the GM with a lot of room to place Ormkirk anywhere in any campaign world. That first part focuses on the meeting with the townmaster and the information the characters can get. There is a list of what he knows, but some of the information in the list should not be provided to the players. I think this could have been better ordered with a section on what he keeps to himself and a section of what he is willing to divulge. Something also missing from this part is a DC for Sense Motive checks, or other type of skills. The adventure refers to Social Interaction checks, but there is no difficulty level offered.

The characters can of course investigate the town and ask around to gather more information. Again, no DC is provided but we know how long it takes and how much it costs to get a piece of information. The unfortunate thing here is that the information collected in a list of 10 pieces of information and are arranged in a random table... Considering that some parts reveal a lot about the plot and others are red herring, I feel like a DC for success should have been provided because some information can raise suspicion about the townmaster’s involvement. This can divert the characters to investigate more instead of heading towards the Kobold caves. We get flavor text for each piece of information gathered. This is a refreshing change from what is usually listed in Pathfinder module and helps to illustrate how the group gets the information.

Part 2 is about exploring the hills. We get a random encounter table and there is also a description of how the bandits stalk the characters and how Grabbold deals with them, most likely spilling the beans about his association with Thaddeus Travail. The bandit’s lair is not mapped, although it is described. It would have been nice to have a map of the lair considering that they are a part of the conspiracy. Following the map provided by the townmaster, the characters reach the ambush cave. It is mentioned they can find kobold tracks and wild dogs’ tracks, but we do not get a DC or a suggestion for the check. It is not a big deal, but it feels like a minor omission. Although the cave entrance is guarded by a few kobolds and dogs, we do not know how they react when the characters attack. We know that they are alert, but do they make a stand or retreat to fight with the other ambushers in the main cave?

After realizing that these caves do not corresponds to the kobolds main lair, the characters can move to part 3 in which the main lair is described. The first chambers of the kobolds’ lair are described in more details and are inhabited by the front guard of the kobolds. The second part of the lair is composed of a twisted maze of tunnels. Instead of mapping the whole thing, the adventure suggests a few skills that can be used to navigate the tunnels and a list of random encounters (including traps). What I really like about this part is that a list of modifiers is provided for the check. What is interesting here is that the list contains modifier for the presence of kobold prisoners, based on status in the tribe. Nice! Does this mean that the lower level where the queen is “hiding” can be found with one lucky roll? Well, not really navigating the tunnels to the lower level requires successful four checks! I guess you could be lucky and roll high enough four times in a row, but that would be amazing luck for low-level characters. So, kudos for making the exploration part easy to manage and easy to complete without having to go through a complex dungeon map! The lower levels of the cave complex are where the Queen is conduction her foul sacrifices and where the prisoners are held. I feel like part 3 of the adventure is its strongest element and the best designed. You have interesting challenges and the kobold “flavor” of the lair is well captured.

Part 4 covers the final confrontation with Thaddeus Travail, but nothing more. How the population reacts to the news? What impact does it have to have a town without a leader? Since we do not have settlement stats, we do not know who else may step up to replace the townmaster. While the encounter itself is covered, the impact and repercussions are overlooked.

As with the previous module, the physical attributes (str, dex, etc) and mental attributes (int, wis, etc) are missing from the stat blocks. While it is relatively easy to find the ones for the monster, the major antagonists, like the Townmaster, are harder to deduct. It would have been nice to have that information should the players use spells like Ray of Enfeeblement. In the adventure, we get an NPC profile for each of the three antagonists the characters will be confronting. It is nice to have that background and it helps to play the NPC, but these same profiles are also added with the stat blocks which make it a bit repetitive. One other detail is that the stat blocks do not seem to follow a particular order. It is not that important because there are not that many creatures in the adventure, but does make it a bit longer to find the correct information.

There is a very handy table to create kobold names on the spot. That is very nice since, at least for me, it is not that easy to come up with a name on the spot unless you have a list on hand. Making it random is very useful to avoid repeating the same name. To going over and beyond, there is a table for physical traits for kobold with over 30 traits. Kudos for that!

The module ends with a handy player handout describing a job offering (to start the adventure) and with maps of the kobold caves including the ambush caves. The maps are beautifully drawn but although the scale is indicated, the squares on the maps are barely visible. It makes it hard to draw a map for the players. Depending on your style of play, it may slow the game down unless you take time to determine the scale before play.

Overall, the plot of the module is interesting and it is nice to see how the different partners act according to their own agendas. The exploration of the kobold lairs is the strongest part of the module, with the other parts feeling a bit neglected like the beginning and the end of the adventure. The exploration of the hills is well balanced part. Depending on what you look for in a module, the missing stats and the missing DCs may be details that you wish you had, but the module still does what it sets to do: provide an interesting plot and enough information to make this a good adventure for low level characters. If, however, you do not mind that some part are less polished and that not all information is provided at the level we usually find in most Pathfinder module, then you will have no problem running this adventure. It is important to keep in mind that the ultimate goal is to provide an old school feel to these adventures. I have not read an old module for some time, but I do remember that the story was more important than having stats for everything. That is what we get here, being an older gamer I remember fondly these old modules like B2: Keep on the Borderlands and what we have here is something that has the feel of these modules. So, it may seem contradictory to the rest of my review, but this is a solid adventure even if some parts could have been a bit more polished. I look forward to the next module!