# Pathfinder Adventure Review: The Harrowing by Crystal Frasier



## Steel_Wind (Sep 12, 2011)

*
The Harrowing – Paizo’s Surreal Trip Down the Rabbit Hole
*
In early 2008, Paizo released a card deck for use with their Golarion  campaign setting.  Intended to provide a method of fortune telling  during play and to potentially serve as an alternative _Deck of Many Things_, the _Harrow Deck_  was released with great fanfare at the time.  With the word “harrow”  operating as a play on the word “tarot,” the cards were a departure 

from Paizo’s card deck line, which had largely been used at that time as  props and accessories for treasure and magic items in game.  The Harrow  Deck featured a unifying art style, drawn and colored by veteran comic  artist Kyle Hunter, best known for his whimsical illustrations in both _Dungeon_ and _Dragon_  magazine during Paizo’s stewardship of those periodicals. The deck  contained 54 individual illustrated cards and came with a rulebook for  using the cards for divination as well as for its card game “Towers”.  

Additionally, Paizo incorporated the deck as a game play option as part of the plotline of the  _Curse of the Crimson Throne_ Adventure Path.

If the  _Harrow Deck_ has a real deficiency,  it is the backs of the cards themselves, which feature an illustration  from the box art instead of a simpler geometric pattern.  I would have  preferred a more traditional diamond checkered pattern than a  reproduction of the box art logo on the back of  each card, so that when  the cards appear face down they look more like a traditional tarot deck  – and less like a gimmick. The only other oft repeated complaint about  the _Harrow Deck_ is that the box is a little too large to tightly  constrain all of the cards within it after the cellophane wrappers are  removed from each of the 2 x 27+ card decks the product ships with.  Admittedly, the cards can rattle around a little bit in the box after it  is opened when you shake it. Overall, those are rather petty complaints  about the _Harrow Deck_, a widely acclaimed original and unique RPG game accessory.

 

The  _Harrow Deck_ was well received by fans,  ultimately garnering the Gold ENnie at Gencon 2008 for “Best  Accessory”.  After its appearance in the _Curse of the Crimson Throne_, the _Harrow Deck_ was absent from Paizo’s adventure products for about three years. Finally, in February 2011, the _Harrow Deck_ reappeared in another Adventure Path, the ENnie award winning _Carrion Crown_. The divination cards’ presence within _Carrion Crown_  seemed especially appropriate, given that the Ustaslav region where the  Adventure Path is set is the homeland of the Varisians, Golarion’s  analog to the medieval gypsy culture.

Around the same time as the  _Carrion Crown_ AP was being written and developed, Erik Mona, Publisher at Paizo Publishing LLC., decided he wanted to take the use of the _Harrow Deck_ within a Paizo adventure a step further. Mona was determined to have the _Harrow Deck_ become the central plot device of a stand-alone adventure. Mona’s adventure premise would ultimately become _The Harrowing_.  

Mona explained how the idea for the adventure came about : “The artist who drew the _Harrow Deck _and  came up with a lot of the conceptual work for them, Kyle Hunter, is one  of my best friends, and I've always had a soft spot in my heart for  them. I love the idea of phantasmagoric adventures that stand out from  the norm, so I thought it would be a good idea to do just such an  adventure in which the PCs get sucked into the world of the deck and  have to deal with its unusual denizens.”

*“It’s a Trap!”
*
The central premise of  _The Harrowing_ as  initially conceived by Mona was to use a cursed harrow deck as a trap  and portal to a small demiplane.  When Crystal Frasier, Production  Specialist at Paizo, pitched her version of _The Harrowing_ to Mona, James  Jacobs and Wes Schneider, 

 

she ultimately got the green light to go ahead.  “Crystal's proposal was  right on the money and exactly what I expected. Well, that's not true.   It was actually better than I expected,” Mona clarified.   

“Erik wanted the story to just focus on the  _Harrow Deck_  and the story behind it,” adventure author Crystal Frasier explains.  “The turnover was that they wanted an adventure that revolved around all  of the cards in the _Harrow Deck_.”  So Frasier set out to do exactly that.

*The Harrowing – Backstory
*
As Frasier has designed the module, the pocket dimension in which the  PCs find themselves is a demiplane created by the Varisian bard  Sonnorae, who set out to create a microcosm in which the tales, myths  and legends of her people would not be lost to the ages and forgotten.  Ultimately, Sonnorae entered into the demiplane she had created from the  Dimension of Dreams to permanently dwell there. Like other demiplanes  touching Golarion, time does not really pass within the Harrowed Realm  and so Sonnorae lived on within it without aging, imbuing the Harrowed  Realm with the characters, settings and myths of her people until they  finally took physical form. These characters, quite literally come to  life straight out of the myths and legends in which they were described  over the ages took form as the demiplanes’ only denizens, the Storykin.   Eventually, the entrance to the Harrowed Realm demiplane became fixed  and tied to Sonnorae’s harrow deck upon Golarion, the  _Deck of Harrowed Tales_.

However charming it first appears, the Storykin are victims of the same tales that gave them life. Like the characters in the  _Star Trek: The Next Generation_ episode “_The Royale_”, or the film _Groundhog Day_,  the lives of the Storykin endlessly repeat without deviation, over and  over without cessation. The Storykin yearn to escape this fate -- and  the Harrowed Realm -- and to become wholly real. A group of the  Storykin, the Conspirators, resolves to kill their creator Sonnorae in  order to escape the Harrowed Realm and their endlessly repeating lives.

While the Conspirators are successful in killing their creator and  gaining some measure of self-determination, they find they cannot leave  the Harrowed Realm. The lesser Storykin around them continue with their  ceaselessly repeating lives essentially as before. Still trapped within  the Harrowed Realm, the chief Conspirator now seeks to escape by drawing  the living of Golarion to the demiplane and grafting the essence of the  living onto its own body in order to escape the crushing boredom and  despair of this nightmare story land. 

*I Don’t Think We’re in Kansas Anymore
*
The premise, as Frasier summarizes is that “ _The Harrowing_  is basically an adventure where you run across a cursed harrow deck  that serves as an anchor for an alternate dimension where all of the  cards and stories that went into making the original harrow deck are  living, breathing characters.  You get sucked into this sort of  Wonderland and you have to wander around killing people, making allies  and figuring out how to get back out.” 

 

While the PCs are trying to figure out what went wrong and how to get  out of this bizarre  storybook demiplane, the chief Conspirator lies in  wait to claim their souls in its own attempt to escape from the Harrowed  Realm. 

The trap that the  _Deck of Harrowed Tales_  presents is a clever design element of the module as it permits any GM,  running any campaign, to seamlessly insert the module into it at any  time. Because time does not pass in the Harrowed Realm, there are no  “plot” consequences in the PCs “real” campaign world as the PCs spend a  week (or more) in the Harrowed Realm. A GM running an Adventure Path  campaign such as _Kingmaker_, a home-brew campaign, or as a module  approved for use with 8th to 10th level Pathfinder Society characters  can each fit The Harrowing into their campaigns without difficulty.  All  that is required to begin the module is either to present the mission  hook provided at the beginning of The Harrowing, or to simply place the _Deck of Harrowed Tales_  into a treasure horde or some undead creature’s possessions.  Either  way, once the PCs have the pouch with the card deck in their hands, they  will find themselves instantly transported to the demiplane. The one  catch is that the vortex that sucks the PCs into the Harrowed Realm also  brings the _Deck of Harrowed Tales_ with them.

*Card Mechanic: It’s All in the Cards
*
The optional mechanic associated with the  _Deck of Harrowed Tales_  is one of the most interesting game mechanics in the module and one of  the elements that sets it apart from any other FRPG adventure module  ever published.  It is such a strong and recurring design element within  the adventure that I have difficulty regarding it as an “optional” side  dish; rather, it is very much the main course in this banquet.  

After entering the Harrowed Realm, the module unfolds principally as a  location based adventure within the pocket plane. However, it is soon  evident that the locations in which the players find themselves and the  denizens of this bizarre storybook land are literally drawn straight  from the deck itself.  Each encounter, event, or location within the  Harrowed Realm the PCs can meet is tied to, is a representation of --  and is affected by -- each card in the  _Deck of Harrowed Tales_.  The players can affect the outcome of each encounter and tilt the  balance of the encounter in their favor – provided they choose to invoke  the correct card(s) within the _Deck_ when the encounter or event begins, or when a location is entered.

 

The premise of the module’s design -- to use each of the 54 cards within the  _Harrow Deck_ within the module itself -- is one aspect of _The Harrowing_ that _*completely*_  succeeds.  Sometimes the clues as to which card(s) should be played are  obvious... and sometimes not so obvious. The players must pay attention  to their surroundings and use their logic and intuition to divine which  cards they should play at the outset of each encounter in order to gain  a decided advantage. It may sound somewhat contrived, but because the  locations, characters and events in which the players find themselves  are literally based upon the artwork in the cards, the mechanic has a  very natural feel to it. It makes sense, in the context of the crazy  alternate reality in which the PCs find themselves trapped.

The mechanic for card “playing” can in itself present a challenge to players.  No card within the  _Deck of Harrowed Tales_ repeats itself in _The Harrowing_,  so as the module moves to its conclusion, the pool of cards from which  the PCs must make their choices becomes progressively smaller. Whenever a  card is played, rightly or wrongly, that card is removed from play. A  mistake will necessarily cause the players to miss out on the immediate  benefit that playing the right card would have conferred.  Moreover, the  mistake will also have consequences in a subsequent encounter, as a  misplayed card will no longer be available to play when it could have  helped.

Central to the task in solving each puzzle in  _The Harrowing’s_ encounters and determining which card(s) to play is the artwork upon each of the 54 unique cards in the _Harrow Deck_.  While the name of the card is often itself an obvious clue, Kyle  Hunter’s artwork is the inspiration and foundation for Frasier’s  Storykin and the Harrowed Realm itself; therefore, the artwork is  usually the principal clue for the players to follow.

*Caveat: Having a Harrow Deck is More a “Necessity”, Less an “Option” 
*
While  _The Harrowing’s_ presentation of a  harrow deck coming to life is the module’s greatest strength, it can  also be the source of its greatest weakness.  While a list of cards  titles is provided in the module along with the suggested corresponding  card in a standard 52+jokers card deck (the same list appeared in  Pathfinder #7), much of the charm of the module will elude players  without access to a _Harrow Deck_. The artwork on the cards really is that important to the design and game play of the module itself. 

While it is true that the mere title of each card often provides a  substantial clue as to when it should be played, the entire premise of  the module -- that the Harrowed Realm is the  _Harrow Deck_ incarnate -- instantly dissipates with such an approach. If you simply cannot find a _Harrow Deck_ no matter how hard you try, then this may be the only choice available to you. 

 

However, if you have a choice, I do not recommend that approach at all. The entire point of  _The Harrowing _is tied so closely to the _Harrow Deck_ that you should consider buying a _Harrow Deck_ a necessity and not a mere option in order to play this module. A _Harrow Deck_  is not, in the case of this adventure, a mere cosmetic afterthought or a  gimmick. It is, quite literally, the entire premise of the module and  deeply affects its entire design and game play.  

*Lucy in the Sky (with Cards)
*
The encounters in the Harrowed Realm run the full gamut, from the  charming to the bizarre, to the darkly disturbing. The Storykin might  have once been characters in a children’s tale, but they have become  greatly twisted over time. These are just the sort of characters you  might meet in the original Grimm’s Fairy Tales – before Disney and  well-intentioned parents removed all trace of anything dark and scary  from them. The Storykin may befriend the PCs if they play their cards  right (pun intended), but many are just as likely to resolve to eat the  heroes or simply torture them to alleviate their boredom.   

As you might expect, the overall atmosphere in the Harrowed Realm comes across as  _outright trippy_.  The Harrowed Realm is part storybook, part nightmare, part  hallucination and wholly surreal by design. The surreal nature of both  the inhabitants and the place where the PCs find themselves is so  obviously bizarre, plainly artificial and wholly wrong that the entire  premise works brilliantly.

Author Crystal Frasier explains that while growing up as a young girl in Florida,  _Alice in Wonderland_  was one of her favorite stories.  While the invisible hand of Lewis  Carroll can be felt at times within the module, Frasier draws on other  imagery and inspiration too, some of it far more sinister and disturbing  than anything Alice had to deal with.  You don’t read _The Harrowing _to your six-year old before bedtime.

*The Harrowing  - * *Production Values  

* The remarkable quality of the module is also present throughout the production values of the product.  Visually, _The Harrowing_  is the most attractive stand-alone module that Paizo has yet released.   Frasier agrees with my impressions of the physical presentation of the  module, “Andrew Vallas is our new graphic designer at Paizo and he is  absolutely amazingly gifted. We also have some new artists who worked on  _The Harrowing_, Norwegian artist Yngvar Asplund and Russia’s  Dmitry Burmak. Their work is just gorgeous; it’s so colorful, round and  descriptive.”

 

Frasier is (rightly) effusive in her praise of the entire team who worked on  _The Harrowing_.  “I probably owe a few favors at this point. It just turned out gorgeous  because we started out with a really good pitch, with a product that  everybody at Paizo loved already. We had a lot of art resources to begin  with, too. We had these beautiful card borders. We had Kyle Stanley  Hunter’s original drawings for the Harrow Deck that we could send to our  artists as reference to give them a better idea of what we wanted.   Everything just sort of came together in this perfect storm and we ended  up with a beautiful, beautiful product.” 

While the layout and illustration artwork is indeed beautiful, the  attractiveness of the module also continues through to the one aspect of  an adventure where making a mistake can be impossible to recover from:  cartography.  

“The cartography, by veteran artist Rob Lazzaretti is absolutely beautiful.  It was a heck of a challenge, too. In the  _Harrow Deck_  we have nine location cards, that is, nine cards that are places  instead of people or concepts and we wanted a setting for each of  those.” Frasier says. 

Erik Mona agreed and is very pleased with how the module turned out,  acknowledging, “The entire production team on the module worked very  hard and turned in their best performance.”  

*On Your Way Out… 
*
When asked how she managed to craft her tale around such a seemingly  random and disparate deck of pseudo-tarot cards, Frasier was thoughtful  for a moment.  “It’s kind of strange, but I sort of built this bizarre  mythology for Varisia in the back of my mind as I was writing this. Once  I was done looking through all the cards and figuring out what stories  they went with, writing the actual adventure was incredibly easy.” 

As for what is ahead for Frasier:  “At the moment, I’m interested in  doing another module. It’s mostly just an issue of finding the spare  time. Obviously, Paizo keeps us all incredibly busy, as much as we’d all  love to write every single product in-house. I’ve got a couple of ideas  for modules I’m kicking around.  One is sort of a Shakespearean  romantic comedy idea with a gargoyle (Shakespeare was all about gothic  statuary) and another is about hideous mutant octopi abominations.” 

I am not too sure about “Shakespeare and gargoyles”. Then again, do you  know what would have happened if someone had told me before I reviewed _ The Harrowing_ that a module based upon a faux-tarot deck, peopled by  storybook characters - during which the PCs play cards before each  encounter - would become my favorite Paizo module to date? I would have  responded that they were  *stark frikkin’ insane* and that could never, _ever_, happen with that sort of premise; no way, no how. And I would have been *dead wrong*, too.

Shows you what I know. So bring on Romeo, Juliet, and the gargoyles Crystal. I’m game. 


*Title: The Harrowing
*Author: Crystal Frasier 
Type: PFRPG Adventure (9th level) 32 pages
Price: *$13.99 Print/$9.99 PDF Paizo.com* 


*Title: Pathfinder Chronicles: Harrow Deck
*Type: 58 Cards in double wide-box + rulebook 
Price: *$15.99 Paizo.com* 


To find out more about _The Harrowing_ and to listen to the “spoilerific”  interview with author Crystal Frasier together with individual encounter  analysis and tips for running The Harrowing, listen to Episode #016 of  the (ENnie Award Winning)  _Chronicles: Pathfinder Podcast_, due out later this month on d20Radio.com.

_"All artwork depicted in this review article is copyright Paizo  Publishing LLC. and is used herein with the express permission of the  copyright holder." 
_


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## Zil (Sep 12, 2011)

I certainly have to agree with this review.  This is probably my favorite Paizo adventure to date.   I'm really looking forward to running this.


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## Scott McFarland (Sep 13, 2011)

Easily the best Pathfinder module. 

I haven't enjoyed a module so much since The Keep on the Borderlands.


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## Anselyn (Sep 14, 2011)

*Review?*

Not really a* review* this, is it. More a promotional piece of fluff / press release. 

Now, it's interesting but I do rather expect a review to show some critical commentary and some pros and cons of the product.


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## WesSchneider (Sep 14, 2011)

Good show to Crystal, the praise for her fantastic (read: cracked out) work is very much deserved! 

I'd SOOOO love to do a version of the Harrow Deck some day with card  backs similar to what's in the illo here. There's a number of reasons  why we didn't in the first place and might not again, but it sure would  look cool!


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## Frostmarrow (Dec 31, 2011)

Played this on two consequtive game nights and time flew by. The adventure was whimsical and wondeful. We had great fun! We didn't have, or had ever heard of, the deck of cards yet didn't miss anything. Good show indeed!


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