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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tuerny" data-source="post: 2008365" data-attributes="member: 674">Shadow of the Exile, written by Matt Staroscik, is the second module in Privateer Press's Witchfire Trilogy. It is a site-based adventure designed for characters of level three to five. It is set in and around the city of Corvis in the Iron Kingdoms setting, but the Iron Kingdom campaign setting, which is not yet published, is not needed to run this adventure. The Longest Night, the first module in the Witchfire Trilogy, is not needed to run this module but is highly suggested. More information on the Iron Kingdoms can be found at www.ironkingdoms.com.  The Book The module, a standard laminated, perfect bound booklet, is sixty-four pages long. The margins are ends of a gray scroll and are generally 1.5" wide.The cover illustration, by Matt Wilson, depicts Alexia standing with Witchfire in hand, with the mechanical walls of the temple of Cyriss. Shadow of the Exile's cover illustration is similar in quality to that of The Longest Night, but, in my opinion, does not quite match that of the cover of The Longest Night. The interior artwork, by Brian Snoddy and Matt Wilson, is composed of black and white drawings that match the mood and feel of the module perfectly. They vary from pictures of locations to important characters in the module to monsters such as the gatormen.The maps are informative and often artistically rendered, including a grid and scale where necessary, and including major furniture and physical features.The content of the book is divided into the Introduction, the three Acts of the adventure (detailed in "The Meat" below), and three appendices. The Introduction is fairly standard, with the addition of an overview of the Iron Kingdoms and a few of its gods. The Appendices detail the creatures of the module, including several new ones that I assume will be further detailed in Privateer's Monstronomicon, Volume 1, the major NPCs statistics, even those such as Ulfass Borloch and Vahn Oberen that are unlikely to be used in the module, and rules on firearms in the Iron Kingdoms. The Meat    Shadow of the Exile picks up where the Longest Night left off, in the aftermath of an invasion by undead lead by Alexia, a misguided sorcereress bent on revenge on the city of Corvis for the execution of her mother. Alexia now seeks to bring her mother back to life through resurrecting her in the temple of Cyriss, the Clockwork Goddess, found in the depths of the bayou to the northeast of Corvis through the use of the dark sword Witchfire. The PCs can be brought in to this adventure through either the influence of the priest Father Dumas, if they played through the Longest Night, or Captain Helstrom, if they did not.    After doing some research and questioning to discover the exact location of the temple, the PCs must charter a boat to reach the temple. A number of encounters in the bayou alternatively help and hinder the PCs along their way, including encounters with the interesting gobbers found in the first adventure and a variation of lizardfolk called gatormen. The PCs also discover that members of the kingdom's old secret police, the Inquisitors, are also on their way to the temple. The picture of the gatormen presented in Shadow of the Exile is particularly good at providing an intriguing look at the gatormen. The location of their village, inside a giant metal construct, also provides a nice touch that fits the setting well.     After their voyage through the bayou, the PCs arrive at the temple of Cyriss, Maiden of Gears. The temple is a huge cubic structure, made of a mixture of magic and technology and filled with angry, evil priests of Cyriss and their construct servants, the Servitors of Cyriss. Alexia and the Inquisitors have both arrived before the PCs, killing many of the temple's defenders and throwing the area into a beehive of activity. The PCs must navigate through the temple and its angry defenders until they make their way to the location where Alexia is attempting to perform a ritual to resurrect her mother and her mother's coven. To distract the PCs while she tries to bring back her mother she sends the zombified remains of her mother's coven to attack the PCs. If the PCs are victorious, then the coven is destroyed, and Alexia is sent hurtling into the machinery core of the temple and her supposed doom. The PCs then recover Witchfire.    When the PCs return to Corvis they discover that it has been taken over by the exiled former ruler of Cygnar after which the module is named, Vinter Raelthorne IV. Captain Helstrom reveals to the PC that Father Dumas has been captured, and that Raelthrone, through his cronies Vahn Oberen and Ulfass Borloch, is seeking Witchfire.Captain Helstrom reveals that Father Dumas is being held in the jail beneath the courthouse. He provides them with a map that allows secret entrance into the cell block where the Father is held so that the PCs can pull of a rescue. Helstrom cannot do it without compromising his position as a spy. While going through the rescue attempt the PCs discover a new menace that Raelthorne has gathered from the wastes. The rescue attempt ends Shadow of the Exile. The module closes with a list of adventure hooks that can be used until the third module of the trilogy; The Sleeping Legion is released in August. The GoodShadow of the Exile shares most of the Longest Night's strengths but is able to avoid most of its weaknesses. Most of all it is an interesting and entertaining adventure dripping with mood and style. From the bits of technological and magical devices found in the module, the steamship trip up the bayou, the techno magical wonder of the Temple of Cryriss, to Corvis, City of Ghosts, the entire module provides a rich setting that draws upon many conventional fantasy standards and twists them into something fresh, and new. The adventure is also able to avoid most of the flaws of The Longest Night. Whether it wad due to listening to the fans (in regards to the absence of critical spell lists for spellcasters such as Alexia) or due to natural maturation of the production process, the result is the same. The BadWhile mostly avoiding the flaws of The Longest Night, Shadow of the Exile does take one of the more minor flaws of The Longest Night and expand on it greatly. While the Longest Night suffered from a minor threat of linearity it was able to avoid it in many areas, especially in the parts of the module that took place in Corvis. Shadow of the Exile, however, is much more linear than its predecessor, with few alternatives possible in the presented flow of the adventure. Also, while Privateer claims it is easy to remove the technological aspects from the setting, and a way it is for the Longest Night, it would be much more difficult to do so for Shadow of the Exile. To change the Temple of Cryiss in particular, with its omnipresent technological flavor, would probably be more work to remove than it is worth.Rating: 4/5</blockquote>

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