A 16.6 MB free download consisting of:

-A coupon good for $5.99 off the price of a series subscription. -An 8-page pack of color maps suitable for reference and hand-outs. -A Black-and white 65 page PDF (for people who want to save ink when printing out the module). -A color 65 page PDF (for people who want the full effect). -A seventeen page MS Word 2003 document with all the combat stats (for people who detest book-flipping during combat).

Recommended: the free Player's Guide and the free Campaign Guide, which are also available on RPGNow. (This module is written assuming that you have read these two documents.)

Description: The ruler of the evil Ragesian Empire has vanished and is presumed dead. The Empire and its ancient enemy "the Shining Land" are about to go to war for control of the entire region. Unfortunately, as the campaign begins, your characters are stuck in the place where these two armies are destined to meet each other. For people who like Psionics, the campaign has a way to make this a psionic campaign.

Likes: Well-written, engaging adventure. Offers Psionics as an option instead of completely ignoring the system. Setting-neutral so that you can drop the adventures into the campaign world of your choosing. Lots of room in the plotline for you to make additions, deletions, and changes. I also liked the "Combat stats booklet" because I am one of those people who detests page-flipping during combat.

Dislikes: The opening adventure mentions that there are 8 temples the city of Gate Pass. However, the adventure never mentions more than two religions. Enough detail for a GM to be able to pick deities and portfolios would have been helpful.

Strong storyline but there are times in the module where not all the bases are covered for some vitally important clues the PCs must receive in order to continue some of the quests.

The adventure could easily have a DM scrambling if the PCs do not follow the story arc.

Despite its tight encounter set ups, there are points in the module where the DM actually has to improvise in order for the PCs to find the right information. Some encounters may have to be 'dumbed down' a bit for module progression.

Great ideas and an interesting story but the lack of a cohesive flow at some points in the module can really make things difficult for a DM and players, especially those who are unaccustomed to gathering intelligence and using diplomatic or espionage methods to gather information.

Definitely not a module for hack n slash players, but I do not hold this against the campaign at all...Just a warning to all those DMs out there with PC groups that use more brawn and less brains. I just wish more of the bases were covered if the PCs fail to gather the vital clues.

This is an excellent adventure with lots of inspired action for those who like a story-heavy roleplaying game. Those who prefer dungeon-crawling might wish to avoid it as there are no such elements in this adventure. It is still a very exciting adventure and my group had a lot of fun with it. I have two critiques, one minor, and one major. The minor critique is that there is a lot for players to digest as this is the beginning of a long series. It doesn't really interfere with the game much as long as you present the material clearly to the players. The major critique is that the editing of this adventure was not very good. Typos, grammatical errors, and punctuation errors are rife throughout, and the organization of information is not optimal. I spent a lot of time during the game trying to find necessary information that wasn't located in a logical place. The statistics for NPCs are also located twice in the text, meaning the page count is artificially inflated and printer ink is wasted. Very little of this has to do with the actual quality of the adventure itself, but presentation lacked a bit to be desired. Were it not for this, I would probably give this 5 out of 5. As it is, I give it a weak 4, but would still recommend it to others.

With this product, EN Publishing kicks off a grand adventure path: twelve modules designed to carry a party of first level heroes into the heart of an escalating war between powerful nations. When the dust settles, the PCs will have reached 20th level and become instrumental in the outcome of a dangerous conflict.

Like all great adventures, this one begins in a tavern. The PCs are charged with a simple task: escort a cleric out of harm's way while an invading army of mage-hunting inquisitors lays siege to the city. Things, of course, get more complicated once the action gets going. By the time the adventure concludes, the seeds have been sown for the greater campaign to come, hinting at the intrigue and danger building in the background.

Throughout most of the adventure, the PCs are in a city that is under attack by an invading army. The adventure includes plenty of tools to help the DM make this fact very clear to the players. In some cases, the war adds an additional level of danger to the combats and action scenes. In others, the war plays a background role, adding to the flavor of various scenes. One of my favorites is an aerial battle scene that precedes an encounter with an enemy soldier. This not only good imagery on the author's part, it is also an inventive way to trigger a fight.

Most of the Scouring of Gate Pass is written in a non-linear fashion. There is a general flow to the plot with a series of encounters that the DM is meant to insert along the way. That is not to say that everything is wide open, but the design facilitates a sense of free choice for the players. If your group dislikes railroading, they shouldn't feel too constrained by this adventure.

The author definitely wrote this book with the DM in mind. Sidebars throughout give advice on dealing with potential problems, adding or removing elements, and other issues that might crop up. These are the sort of things that one expects in a professional adventure, but they are all too often excluded.

Finally, I should give credit to the people responsible for the cartography. The maps of the various adventure sites are easy to use and nice to look at, a combination that is often difficult to achieve.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: This is a good adventure that hints at even better things to come. There is a great deal of support for this product outside the module itself. Both a player's guide and a DM's guide are available for free download. There are also battle maps and other handouts as well.

I thought that the author did a great job making sure that the war stood out as a major piece of the adventure, even when it is only adding flavor in the background. Done right, with a skilled DM, I think that Scouring of Gate Pass will really hook players into the events of the unfolding plot. This is a great start, and I look forward to checking out the rest of the modules in this series.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: This adventure is very dependent on the DM's ability to keep the plot flowing along properly. The somewhat open nature of events means that the referee will have to be very familiar with the module as a whole.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

War of the Burning Sky: The Scouring of Gate Pass is a 65 page d20 fantasy adventure and the first adventure in EN Publishing's War of the Burning Sky adventure path. The War of the Burning Sky adventure path and campaign saga consists of twelve linked adventures that take characters from 1st to 20th level and embroil them in a war of epic proportions. The campaign saga includes both a Player's Guide and Gamemaster's Guide available for separate download, although it is strongly recommended that players do not read the Gamemaster's Guide as it contains a complete adventure overview and significant spoilers. This adventure, The Scouring of Gate Pass, is for 1st level characters, and finds the characters in Gate Pass just as the Ragesian Empire war machine and their mage-hunting inquisitors arrive on the outskirts of the city.

This product comes as a zip file contain a number of files for the adventure: a full color screen pdf version, a black and white print pdf version, a rich text file containing all adventure and combat statistics, and a separate map pdf file containing the adventure maps, although these are included in the actual adventure itself as well. The product comes with extensive bookmarks, allowing you to navigate to an encounter, map or section of the adventure.

Layout if fairly simple, with no real bordering to speak off, but the writing is good and evocative in places. Editing has generally been very well done, and the stat blocks themselves (located at the end of the product) for the most part look good as well. One or two errors have naturally crept in throughout the product, but for the most part it's of a high standard despite the relatively simple presentation. Artwork is numerous with some good pieces, although many are repeated throughout the product. Maps are very good and clear with good legends and attention to detail, and EN Publishing also offer 1-inch scale battlemaps for download from their War of the Burning Sky website for those using miniature products. In general, a good-looking product without any major hiccups in presentation.

The adventure finds the player characters in Gate Pass, just hours before the invasion of the Ragesian Empires start. Here the PCs meet up with a 'freedom fighter' of sorts that belongs to a group that aims to prevent the escalating war. The PCs become involved in retrieving and finding some vital information from spies, which, with the help of the freedom fighter Torrent, they must deliver to a nearby mage academy. During the course of the adventure, they must contend with the war raging around in the city, bounty hunters, negotiate their way around, fight deadly foes, and generally use every bit of cunning to make it out of Gate Pass alive during the hours of warfare in the city.

The adventure is one of the more creative and inventive I seen in creating a war-like atmosphere around the PCs, but also in sculpting the encounters of the adventure within this time of turmoil. The encounters will not only excite the players, but provide challenges that they will find fun to solve and work through. The encounters are by no means all combat related, and the PCs will find themselves negotiating with friend and foe alike in this adventure. There is certainly something for characters of every class, and most skills will also find some utility in this adventure. The only negative thing related to the encounters is that they are very difficult, particularly for a party of 1st level characters. Some DMs might be inclined to start the adventure off at 2nd level rather than first. The other problem with the difficulty of the encounters is that there is naturally an over-reliance on the higher level NPC, Torrent, as she guides them through the city. While the module writers have made every effort to reduce this, it is unavoidable, and PCs can feel like they're being strung along by the nose.

The adventure organisation and flow is good, but DMs are advised to make sure they have thoroughly read all encounter areas when playing them. The encounters are good in part because they're quite complex to run, and it can therefore be easy to make mistakes when running the adventure. The action throughout the adventure is fast paced as the PCs race against time to escape the city and head out on the path towards the wizard's school with the information they require. I think this adventure is clever in the way that it creates atmosphere and keeps things moving, although it would've been nicer if Torrent had not played such a large role in this adventure. Lazy PCs can easily just turn to Torrent for information rather than thinking their way through. On a related note, players characters should be reasonably well versed with Gate Pass and the Player's Guide, as this will make the adventure more fun as they consider the options open to them within Gate Pass.

Overall, this is a very enjoyable adventure and a cracking start to the War of the Burning Sky campaign saga. The adventure caters for all characters, contains lots of action, lots of intrigue and mystery, and blends these all very well to create an exciting and challenging whole. Barring the unfortunately over-reliance on Torrent, this adventure is of a very high quality, and most players and DMs can't go wrong by playing it. EN Publishing have done a grand job with this, and I hope the other adventures released and to be released are of the same or better standard. Having the constant tension of trying to arrange subtle spy/informant exchanges and diplomatic intricacies within the backdrop of flying dragons and war breaking out creates a very memorable adventure.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Quality and detailed encounters, exciting back-story and background to the campaign, creates good atmosphere during the course of the adventure, varied and caters for most characters and classes, and contains good balance between roleplaying, mystery, and combat. Very good adventure.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The over-reliance on Torrent can become an issue if DMs don't play the NPCs involvement carefully. This adventure's encounters are also brutally difficult for 1st level PCs.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

A strong start to the campaign, building up intriguing setting detail while it tackles the tricky challenges of an espionage-style adventure and of giving first-level characters significant, but not crushing, challenges amid a bitter high-magical siege. Almost every encounter has an unusual challenge or use of the D&D canon to it.

It's probably unavoidable that the 3rd-level NPC, Torrent, has to provide a good deal of support and advice to the party, but I'll be looking for ways to reduce the degree to which she leads the PCs around by the nose.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>