For those not in the know, Paizo has been consistently putting out Adventure Path’s every month for years. Each Adventure Path (AP) is a six book self contained story that generally takes players from level 1 to 16 or 17 and has some specific themes. Each book contains story, monsters, locations, treasure, and information to flesh out the world.

If you are interested in eldritch horror, the works of H.P. Lovecraft or those that followed in his footsteps the Strange Aeons adventure path might be for you. Right from the beginning you are thrown into both something different and something quite familiar. I hope I can give a solid review and some advice after playing through the first two books of the 6 book set.

**Fair warning mild SPOILERS ahead**

For Players

If you read the player’s guide you will know that you start this adventure off with no memory at all, with the exception of the skills your character has. You will need to trust your GM here with your backstory, and also except that while you have a backstory it doesn’t define your going forward.

While making your character I would focus on defining how they would react to external stimuli. Ask yourself how your character might react in these situations

Dealing with prisoners

Handling dead bodies

Needing to work with new people for survival

Lack of sleep

Having others depend on your actions

Killing for the first time (or at least the first time you remember)

View your character as the opportunity to have a set of values and use those to define how you act, I would recommend to let your GM know some of this, because this can lead to great role playing opportunities later on if you happen to learn something about your past that conflicts with your present self.

As for crunch the players guide has some great recommendations on what classes will fit well flavor wise in the world.

For GMs

Strange Aeons is a blast, there are creepy monsters, creepy settings and so many places to create great story moments, however there are some places where you will need to do some additional work.

Read all of the books first!

Most APs have an overarching story line and Strange Aeons is no exception, however with your players starting with no memory and slowly gaining some back, you will want to know about their past and the players being involved before you give them any hints to their former lives. Additionally there are references in the first book to characters much later in the book series and it would help you to know what parts they play.

Book 1 titled “In Search of Sanity” could be it’s own stand alone adventure if you did a little bit of work to setup a resolution at the end. This book is dungeon crawl that takes place inside an asylum where you players are finding their powers, learning about each other and hopefully are scared for their lives. There are some issues here, with my run through the players seemed to have a sense of dread, but less a sense of urgency. I would suggest playing up the tremors that happen randomly, also make sure to have the survivors try to bond with the group and play up how much they need to get out of this place as well.

Book 2 titled “The Thrushmoor Terror” is a bit more of a sandbox. There are so many events and encounters for the players to encounter in the town of Thrushmoor that the players may feel overwhelmed with options, I’d suggest having them discover them slowly and take their time. Part 2 and 3 of the books focus around the local fort and the main protagonists manor house. I’d suggest finding ways to keep your party interested in track that is setup for them only so you don’t have to rewrite the encounters, I mean the reason you have an AP is partly to save time doing all of this work.

Have you read or at least skimmed all 6 books yet? Well please skim them because by the end of Book 2 and entering into Book 3 some of the story will start to unfold and you will be at an area where your places might start going off the rails, where your knowledge of the full story will give your more options to let your players be free.

Overall, the first two books have been great. I think there are some story elements I will change myself over the last two books.

In book 1 watch out for character death, if you kill a player there are places a new one could show up in the adventure, but if they are not one of the memory wiped then their motivation for the entire AP changes somewhat. Outside of book 1 there are several places a new player could come in and several reasons they could want to pursue the protagonist.

A few other bits of advice I would offer would be to pick up the syrinscape soundscape for this, it has a wealth of great sounds and background music to keep things on the eerie side. Lastly I am running a 4 person party and 15 point buy for their stats, so far this seems to present a challenge to the group. I’d watch out for powerful players since some of the encounters might be overcome fairly easily.