I'm glad all this is finally out in public... it was getting nerve-wracking staying silent!

But yeah... in a lot of ways, it's THIS adventure that really made a lot of us decide to build the Reign of Winter adventure path the way we built it. It's certainly the adventure in the series that I'm most excited to see!

As for "jumping the shark," we'll see. I think we've got a pretty excellent record by now of taking risks with plotlines and elements that might be considered "shark jumping" (such as Distant Worlds, the robots in Inner Sea Bestiary/Dungeons of Golarion, an all-pirate adventure path, an adventure where you all play goblins, a book all about cryptids, a book all about monsters that we as gamers have spent the last few decades mocking, etc.). I'm relatively sure that "Rasputin Must Die!" will end up being SUPER AWESOME.

Those who worry that it's going a place that they might not want... this element is really nothing new for Baba Yaga themed adventures from previous editions of the game—she's ALWAYS had elements of Earth involved with her. Furthermore... the fact that she's (as far as I know) the only non-deity character from Earth mythology that we've significantly incorporated into Golarion means that we more or less HAD to have Earth ties.

That all said... the method by which the PCs reach Earth is via Baba Yaga's hut. That means that this is going to be pretty self-contained. Don't expect to see relatively contemporary Earth stuff like tanks and Russians showing up again in Golarion stuff (unless this adventure ends up being so popular that you, the paying customers, demand such) anytime soon.

In any case... we've been doing Adventure Paths for 70 volumes at this point. If we end up getting that far without jumping the shark... that's still a pretty good run! :-P