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Return of the Runelords #1
Pathfinder Adventure Path #133: Secrets of Roderick’s Cove
Wrath Shall Reign!
When one runelord rose from his slumber, the frontier nation of Varisia shook with his power, and it took a band of heroes to save the world. Yet there remained six other runelords, and now the most wrathful of them all has woken! As the runelords waken one after another, the dangers and perils faced by past heroes pale in comparison. When a mysterious and fearful ghost manifests on the streets of Roderic's Cove at the same time the town's gangs use the runes and legacies of ancient Thassilonian tyrants for their own ends, a new band of heroes must rise to save Varisia, and perhaps the world, from the return of the runelords!
This volume of Pathfinder Adventure Path begins the Return of the Runelords Adventure Path and includes:
- "Secrets of Roderic's Cove," a Pathfinder adventure for 1st-level characters, by Adam Daigle.
- An exploration and gazetteer of the town of Roderic's Cove and its inhabitants, by Adam Daigle.
- An extensive timeline of the history of Thassilon, revelations about the methods used by each runelord to avoid destruction during the apocalypse of Earthfall, and notes for Game Masters on the roles each runelord plays in this Adventure Path, by James Jacobs.
- A bestiary of monsters lurking around Varisia, including the child-stealing nochlean and the innocuous-looking warpglass ooze, by Mikko Kallio, Luis Loza, Jacob W. Michaels, and Conor J. Owens.
Cover art by Ekaterina Burmak
When one runelord rose from his slumber, the frontier nation of Varisia shook with his power, and it took a band of heroes to save the world. Yet there remained six other runelords, and now the most wrathful of them all has woken! As the runelords waken one after another, the dangers and perils faced by past heroes pale in comparison. When a mysterious and fearful ghost manifests on the streets of Roderic's Cove at the same time the town's gangs use the runes and legacies of ancient Thassilonian tyrants for their own ends, a new band of heroes must rise to save Varisia, and perhaps the world, from the return of the runelords!
This volume of Pathfinder Adventure Path begins the Return of the Runelords Adventure Path and includes:
- "Secrets of Roderic's Cove," a Pathfinder adventure for 1st-level characters, by Adam Daigle.
- An exploration and gazetteer of the town of Roderic's Cove and its inhabitants, by Adam Daigle.
- An extensive timeline of the history of Thassilon, revelations about the methods used by each runelord to avoid destruction during the apocalypse of Earthfall, and notes for Game Masters on the roles each runelord plays in this Adventure Path, by James Jacobs.
- A bestiary of monsters lurking around Varisia, including the child-stealing nochlean and the innocuous-looking warpglass ooze, by Mikko Kallio, Luis Loza, Jacob W. Michaels, and Conor J. Owens.
Cover art by Ekaterina Burmak
92 pages, Paperback
First published August 29, 2018
13 people want to read
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 10, 2025
This is, unfortunately, a mediocre adventure. It's blandly written, with poorly thought out plot and character motivations, and lack of attention to detail. An unfortunate trend with Paizo is the bland nature of their module writing, such that nearly every location feels the same. Roderic's Cove becomes easily interchangeable with Breechill in Hellknight Hill or Etran's Folly Fall of Plaguestone. Sense of place and immersion has fallen by the wayside.
Cover art is excellent. However, though some interior art is decent, much of it is cartoonish and subpar.
Maps are fine, though they all are encounter maps. Given the number of disparate encounter locations throughout the adventure, the absence of a regional map is unfortunate and notable. Paizo would also do well to start including a small map, as they did with their early adventures, illustrating where on Golarion the setting is to be found.
Part 1:
Let's highlight a positive to start: The young boy Kynae's motivations and characterization are very well thought out and written. Nicely done.
Jana's actions make no sense, and her motivations are not sufficiently explained. It defies credulity that anyone would follow her or try to better themselves and their station by forming a gang called "The Horned Fangs" while living under the town.
For some reason, the town authorities are blithely unconcerned about the murder of 6 people in town. However, they encourage the PCs to investigate, naturally!
Part 2:
Spiders and cockroaches aggressively attack the PCs when the characters enter the room the creatures are in, running contrary to any evolutionary survival instincts the creatures would have. Far better would it have been for the critters to only attack PCs who invaded their specific homes - investigating under floorboards, etc.
Other than the faux pas with the vermin, Roderic's Wreck is very well put-together, flavorful and evocative, with well-placed and appropriate haunts, though the sewing haunt is a bit much.
The intro states that Roderic didn't realize the sword he found in an ancient Thassilonian ruin was Baraket, the sword of pride. Curiously enough, the sword case he kept the weapon in is labeled "Baraket". Oops. As well, in his conversation with the PC's, Roderic's ghost warns them about Baraket controlling them. Double-oops. Later, he even refers to Baraket as a Sword of Sin. Triple-oops.
By the way, the module insists that PCs won't earn XP as normal if they happen to defeat Roderic's ghost. Extremely lame.
Some creatures encountered can seem a bit forced. For instance, attic whisperers form as a result of a lonely or neglected child's death and linger in the places where they were formed. Since this module states that Roderic's children were well-loved, the attic-whisperer, as cool as it is, doesn't seem to be thematically appropriate here.
Part 3:
This section is mixed consisting of initially trite encounters with bandits and goblins followed by very solid encounters at Stonehouse and Alaznist's Armory. Generally well-done here, though it's extremely weird that the Roadkeeper bandits are led by an old woman.
Part 4:
Peacock Manor is fairly well crafted, but rooms are not properly described, with a lack of attention to detail. This is especially notable in the scriptorium and library, where not a single specific tome is listed. Poor show. Adventure designers, take note: if space is an issue, simply have fewer rooms, but describe each remaining in detail.
As well, morale becomes an afterthought, with singular opponents apparently not at all caring for their lives while facing off to the death against a full party of adventurers.
Completely weird and out of place that Corstela has an assistant who's a cambion. Apparently, they formed a friendship for some reason long ago. No information is given as to the cambion's motivations. At least he has an incredibly cheesy name: "Pridebound Assistant". As if anyone calls him that.
Part 5:
And now we arrive at the Underflume, where the plot issues rise to the fore. To begin, it makes no sense that Galeena, the owner of Creekside Tavern, would rent out her storeroom, which connects to her valuable and secret cold storage room (kept at a constant 40 degrees F by the way) to Jana, a drunk who was allowed to "sleep off a bender" there. As well, the "secret" door that Jana discovered in the cold storage room, while drunk apparently, is labeled as a normal door on the map.
Jana's actions based on her motivations make no sense. She wants to get Roderic's Cove on her side to help gain revenge on the criminal elements in Riddleport that doomed her mother? Ok, then why does she form a criminal gang called the "Horned Fangs" and live under the town?
The room descriptions and encounters in the Underflume are very underwhelming. Far too much effort went into describing what the rooms were used for 10,000 years ago vs. focusing on making them interesting places to explore now. As it stands, the place seems like it was far more interesting 10 millenia past.
The Alaznist haunt in H20 is extremely cheesy and ham-handed, treating the players like children in the manner in which it forces plot reveals down their throats.
Roderic's Cove Gazeteer:
Very bland and not believalable. The town is described as being small and insular, full of gossiping, superstitious people, but is presented as exactly the opposite, full of people completely tolerant and accepting of gender and racial equality.
This illustrates one of the primary issues with Paizo products these days - since Paizo takes pains to virtue-signal political-correctness, all of their non-evil towns feel exactly the same. All are exemplars of racial and gender harmony and equity, unless they are explicitly matriarchies. This really ruins the verisimilitude of the world, instead making it a pale reflection of our own real-world left-wing politics.
Bestiary:
Notably poor, full of silly creatures.
As with all Pathfinder products, the unfortunate gender activism is present here, with all leaders being female. Yes, even the gang leaders are female. Makes perfect sense! Pretty soon, every Good-aligned nation, city, town, and village in Golarion will be ruled by a female. This falls once again in-line with Paizo's verisimilitude-shattering habit of assigning gender-equality or matriarchy to seemingly all non-evil communities. (-1 star)
The relative quality of Roderic's Wreck saves this from being a 1-star review.
Cover art is excellent. However, though some interior art is decent, much of it is cartoonish and subpar.
Maps are fine, though they all are encounter maps. Given the number of disparate encounter locations throughout the adventure, the absence of a regional map is unfortunate and notable. Paizo would also do well to start including a small map, as they did with their early adventures, illustrating where on Golarion the setting is to be found.
Part 1:
Let's highlight a positive to start: The young boy Kynae's motivations and characterization are very well thought out and written. Nicely done.
Jana's actions make no sense, and her motivations are not sufficiently explained. It defies credulity that anyone would follow her or try to better themselves and their station by forming a gang called "The Horned Fangs" while living under the town.
For some reason, the town authorities are blithely unconcerned about the murder of 6 people in town. However, they encourage the PCs to investigate, naturally!
Part 2:
Spiders and cockroaches aggressively attack the PCs when the characters enter the room the creatures are in, running contrary to any evolutionary survival instincts the creatures would have. Far better would it have been for the critters to only attack PCs who invaded their specific homes - investigating under floorboards, etc.
Other than the faux pas with the vermin, Roderic's Wreck is very well put-together, flavorful and evocative, with well-placed and appropriate haunts, though the sewing haunt is a bit much.
The intro states that Roderic didn't realize the sword he found in an ancient Thassilonian ruin was Baraket, the sword of pride. Curiously enough, the sword case he kept the weapon in is labeled "Baraket". Oops. As well, in his conversation with the PC's, Roderic's ghost warns them about Baraket controlling them. Double-oops. Later, he even refers to Baraket as a Sword of Sin. Triple-oops.
By the way, the module insists that PCs won't earn XP as normal if they happen to defeat Roderic's ghost. Extremely lame.
Some creatures encountered can seem a bit forced. For instance, attic whisperers form as a result of a lonely or neglected child's death and linger in the places where they were formed. Since this module states that Roderic's children were well-loved, the attic-whisperer, as cool as it is, doesn't seem to be thematically appropriate here.
Part 3:
This section is mixed consisting of initially trite encounters with bandits and goblins followed by very solid encounters at Stonehouse and Alaznist's Armory. Generally well-done here, though it's extremely weird that the Roadkeeper bandits are led by an old woman.
Part 4:
Peacock Manor is fairly well crafted, but rooms are not properly described, with a lack of attention to detail. This is especially notable in the scriptorium and library, where not a single specific tome is listed. Poor show. Adventure designers, take note: if space is an issue, simply have fewer rooms, but describe each remaining in detail.
As well, morale becomes an afterthought, with singular opponents apparently not at all caring for their lives while facing off to the death against a full party of adventurers.
Completely weird and out of place that Corstela has an assistant who's a cambion. Apparently, they formed a friendship for some reason long ago. No information is given as to the cambion's motivations. At least he has an incredibly cheesy name: "Pridebound Assistant". As if anyone calls him that.
Part 5:
And now we arrive at the Underflume, where the plot issues rise to the fore. To begin, it makes no sense that Galeena, the owner of Creekside Tavern, would rent out her storeroom, which connects to her valuable and secret cold storage room (kept at a constant 40 degrees F by the way) to Jana, a drunk who was allowed to "sleep off a bender" there. As well, the "secret" door that Jana discovered in the cold storage room, while drunk apparently, is labeled as a normal door on the map.
Jana's actions based on her motivations make no sense. She wants to get Roderic's Cove on her side to help gain revenge on the criminal elements in Riddleport that doomed her mother? Ok, then why does she form a criminal gang called the "Horned Fangs" and live under the town?
The room descriptions and encounters in the Underflume are very underwhelming. Far too much effort went into describing what the rooms were used for 10,000 years ago vs. focusing on making them interesting places to explore now. As it stands, the place seems like it was far more interesting 10 millenia past.
The Alaznist haunt in H20 is extremely cheesy and ham-handed, treating the players like children in the manner in which it forces plot reveals down their throats.
Roderic's Cove Gazeteer:
Very bland and not believalable. The town is described as being small and insular, full of gossiping, superstitious people, but is presented as exactly the opposite, full of people completely tolerant and accepting of gender and racial equality.
This illustrates one of the primary issues with Paizo products these days - since Paizo takes pains to virtue-signal political-correctness, all of their non-evil towns feel exactly the same. All are exemplars of racial and gender harmony and equity, unless they are explicitly matriarchies. This really ruins the verisimilitude of the world, instead making it a pale reflection of our own real-world left-wing politics.
Bestiary:
Notably poor, full of silly creatures.
As with all Pathfinder products, the unfortunate gender activism is present here, with all leaders being female. Yes, even the gang leaders are female. Makes perfect sense! Pretty soon, every Good-aligned nation, city, town, and village in Golarion will be ruled by a female. This falls once again in-line with Paizo's verisimilitude-shattering habit of assigning gender-equality or matriarchy to seemingly all non-evil communities. (-1 star)
The relative quality of Roderic's Wreck saves this from being a 1-star review.
Displaying 1 of 1 review