I'll rate it highly for Planescape-style quality of ideas at a reasonable price. Editing really needs to improve.

It's a remarkably large download (it doesn't help that a large preview has been bundled in with the paid product), considering that what art it includes is fairly simple in style.

Avalon Encounters: Double Edged Sword suffers from the underlying premise beyond a conversation I had with one of my players last year.

He was playing a Paladin, and the story had his order venturing into the most evil realms and mindlessly slaughtering all that is evil. His argument was that paladins would not do that, that they needed a particular law to be broken in order to perform their duty. My argument, and of course me being the DM the winning argument, was that Paladins hate evil, can easily detect evil and any amount of evil that disappears from the universe is satisfying the paladin code.

And so here we are with Double Edged Sword, which makes one fatal flaw in expecting the PCs to believe a particular way, that the mindless slaughter of evil demons is bad. Double Edged Sword is a well thought out tale of a sword that appears as if it should be used for good, but is a disguise for a sinister purpose.

The background and summary of the adventure hook is detailed and fairly exciting. The problem lies in some far fetched ideas that have to be conceived such as archons siding with a demon and a demon being able to wield a demon-bane sword. If your players can get beyond this, and you make some tweaks, (there is no way that a paladin should not be able to detect this sword as evil nor realize that they have become weaker – losing 3 negative levels).

The worst part of the 12-page PDF is not the book, but the 7 pages of non-gaming material, most of which is advertisements. You are definitely receiving material worth a $1, I just wish that they would not have piled so many pages on to give the believe that you were getting a 12 page adventure hook.

For the Dungeon Master There is some descriptively strong writing in the first couple of pages of this document. I found the idea of the sword to be intriguing enough that a good adventure can be designed around it without breaking the inconceivable barrier.

The Iron Word Avalon Encounters: Double Edged Sword, stumbles slightly in its first foray into adventure hooks, but provides enough to feel as if you got your moneys worth.

Avalon Encounter Vol 1, Issue 1 is the first product in a new series of encounter products for the Pathfinder RPG. These short pdf products are aimed at providing a brief encounter and series of plot hooks for GMs that want something new and different to challenge their players. This first issue deals with a powerful sword and bane of demons, but naturally everything is not what it seems, and a few hidden surprises can make for an interesting encounter with difficult choices.

This product comes as a zip file containing printer-friendly and full-colour versions of the product. Of the 12 pages of the main product, only 3 are devoted to written content, while the majority of the product contains advertisements for Avalon Games Company's other products and systems. While I'm all for publishers providing information on their products, I'm sure if I appreciate this heavy-handed and almost over the top display of advertising in your product. Nevertheless, that's largely easily ignored, and the product itself is well presented with some pieces of clip art, fair writing and organisation. It's not a presentation to write home about, but it's pretty neatly done and not really to be smirked at.

The majority of this product details the background and history of a particular demon-bane sword. The history is detailed, containing enough information to make the most of the material provided and give one a feel for the purpose and aim of the product. Naturally this sword has a far more sinister motivation that an unsuspecting PC would expect, and the general plot hooks provide an interesting series of events for players and their characters to get involved. I have to admit that the outcome is rather lacklustre - I expected something a little more tangible than that which is provided. It's one thing to have a sword that's bent on destruction, but quite another to find that the object of its destruction is largely an empty and barren wasteland. Much more could've been done to the premise and execution of the plot hooks, that would get the PCs more involved, captivate their minds and give everything a little more purpose.

The product provides extensive details on the Pathfinder stats of the sword, which are useful for evaluating the encounter mechanically, although there are some inconsistencies in the write-up. For example, the sword is inclined to seek out good wielders, but at the same time bestows negative levels on such wielders. I find it hard to believe that something like that wouldn't be noticed by the wielder, but one could work around that. Overall, I think the product and the encounter has promise, but the execution leaves a number of holes and tired events that are unlikely to live up to the product's billing to keep your player's thrilled. For all the fairly impressive setup and background details, the execution unfortunately falls flat. Fairly decent product with a usable story, but will require some modification to make it work better and hook the players for the duration.