Review: Rite Publishing – Autumn Moon Bath House (Kaidan)

Haiku of Horror: Autumn Moon Bath House
Haiku of Horror: Autumn Moon Bath house is a supplement for the Kaidan Asian dark fantasy setting and Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, written by Michael K. Tumey and published by Rite Publishing.
By Cape Rust

Learn more about Haiku of Horror: Autumn Moon Bath House here
Purchase Haiku of Horror: Autumn Moon Bath House here
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Welcome, weary traveler, to our humble Bath House. You will find that we will do everything in our power to help you wash away the wariness from your long pilgrimage. Yes we provide many services here, but if you choose to stay the night I recommend you stay in your sleeping area… Oh no, we have not had any major problems, but your safety is important to us. There will be no problems, I assure you, please come in!

CONTENT

This 61 page supplement has 9 pages of content, and a whopping 25 pages of maps and map segments.

OVERALL

Rite Publishing has taken its oriental setting to a much higher level of quality than most other, much larger game production companies out there. Most people would be offended to see that this 61 page product only has 9 pages of content, and as many pages of maps and map segments, but I can assure you none of it is wasted space.

RATINGS

Publication Quality: 9 out of 10
Kaidan is a haunted land, and the cover of all of the products looks like it is right out of any Japanese horror movie. If you know anything about some of the horror mythos in the orient, you know how creepy and disturbing they can be. The transparent black background sets off the already creepy penciled art. Add some white lettering with red borders and there is no doubt about what this supplement is about. The interior layout is great; nothing  innovative or special, just solid layout that makes this a very useable product. The bamboo borders on the pages is appropriate for the setting and adds to its overall feel. The use of traditional Japanese prints is handled well and is a great contrast to some of the black and white art that makes this feel like a horror filled setting. There was a small disconnect in one of the creature descriptions dealing with hair color. A minor problem, but after you read this particular creatures description you will see why it is mention worthy. There are some good high quality maps in this book and the addition of printable map sections that allow the use of miniatures is sheer genius. Sure those map sections take up quite a few pages, but to have that in your GM kit is huge!

Mechanics:  10 out of 10
Autumn Moon Bath House is one of those supplements that isn’t mechanic heavy. It isn’t to say that there are not mechanics, just not too many of them. The creature/creatures are interesting and one has an interesting attack mode. Pathfinder encourages the use of miniatures and the included map sections help the GM run the game correctly if they include minis in their games.

Value Add: 10 out of 10
The adventure in Autumn Moon Bath House has an intriguing plot that could be dropped into almost any setting with very few problems. One additional factor that really adds value to this product is the kind of min culture lesson that you get. Michael K. Tumery  takes the time to introduce the reader to the proper Japanese names of some items and explains their uses. The maps have a dual purpose, first they make the adventure come alive for you if you choose to use minis, but this bath house could be a bath house in any oriental adventure. The other purpose is that with enough supplements like this one, with the maps it has, you could quickly produce a high quality village with mapped out buildings, to scale.

Overall: 10 out of 10
There is so much Rite, I mean right, I mean, well you get the idea. There are a lot of great things about this product: the art is good, the layout is great and the maps are well done and usable. The resolution to this haunted Bath House is interesting and just challenging enough to keep players engaged.