GoCorral

I continue to preface this review by stating that I have only read the Jade Regent adventure path as research for my China RPG endeavor. I have NOT played through the adventure path as a DM or as a player. If you’re interested in playing Jade Regent yourself, I will probably be giving some spoilers for the modules but nothing extreme. I’d say its fine to read this and still play through the adventures.

Part 3: The Hungry Storm

Hungry Storm is the worst of Jade Regent‘s adventures in my opinion. The adventure covers the PCs journey over the arctic circle along a well established trade route. The route is absolutely infested with monsters. The majority of the adventure is random encounter monsters that attack the caravan. It’s actually stunning how little structure is presented for the adventure.

The villain of The Hungry Storm is a fairy that wants to make the permafrost bigger with constant blizzards. She’s casting some spells to make this happen near the North Pole. The trade route the players are meant to follow does not go near the North Pole. The adventure says that the caravan’s guide they rescued in Night of Frozen Shadows directs them towards the North Pole, but what happens if the party just says, “No, we want to take the established path. It’s safer and faster.” Players have a responsibility to go where the adventure is, but they could easily see the adventure as “get to Minkai safely” instead of “defeat the evil ice fairy.”

Hungry Storm really feels like it falls apart if the PCs have any sort of backbone. They have an important mission to get to Tian Xia. The fairy is a distraction. Yes, she is making the arctic circle an awful place, but that isn’t necessarily known by the PCs. Even if they do discover what she’s doing I could very easily see a party of adventurers deciding that the fairy’s schemes are someone else’s problem.

Now the easy solution to this issue is putting the fairy’s evil hideout on the well-established trade route. The PCs no longer need to detour. They get attacked by her minions on the way there. They have to go investigate to clear the way for the caravan and the adventure can proceed. But the DM shouldn’t have to make substantial changes like that. The authors of the adventure should have already realized that and done it themselves.