[Free RPG Day 2022] A Fistful of Flowers

Now in its fifteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2022, was celebrated not once, but twice. First on Saturday, 25th June in the USA, and then on Saturday, 23rd July internationally. This was to prevent problem with past events when certain books did not arrive in time to be shipped internationally and so were not available outside of the USA. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Reviews from R’lyeh was get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

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One of the perennial contributors to Free RPG Day is Paizo, Inc., a publisher whose titles for both the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the Starfinder Roleplaying Game have proved popular and often in demand long after the event. For Free RPG Day 2022, the publisher again provides a title for each of these two roleplaying games, A Fistful of Flowers for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Second Edition, the other being Skitter Warp for the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. In past years, the titles released for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game have typically involved adventures with diminutive Player Characters, first Kobolds, then Goblins, and this year, Leshys, humanoid sapient plants of various species and Classes, typically crafted by a druid as a minion or companion. Four pre-generated Player Characters are included, each of Third Level, each independent of their creator, and the scenario requires the Game Master have access to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Second Edition, Pathfinder Bestiary, Pathfinder Advanced Player’s Guide, and the recently released Pathfinder Lost Omens Ancestry Guide. The scenario can be played in one good session or two and offers a good mix of skill challenges, stealth, interaction, and combat.

A Fistful of Flowers begins in Verduran Forest, a large woodland in Avistan. There is a Wildwood Treaty in place between the forest and the nearby settled lands, affording the forest certain legal protections. However, the Player Characters have become aware that some of their numbers are missing and as the more powerful Leshys in the woods, it is their duty to investigate. The trail begins down at a river crossing and leads across first to a campsite and then beyond the limits of the forest canopy to a nearby village. Here the Leshys will find themselves readily accepted by the villagers and able to gather clues as who might be responsible. This will lead to the first of the two main scenes in scenario which are fully detailed and mapped and serve as its two climaxes. This first takes place in the wax laboratory of Crystals and Candlewax, owned by the alchemist who has been stealing into the forest and kidnapping Leshys! He though is not the true villain of the piece, his ambitions having got the better of him and found him serving a snooty, venal aristocrat, Lady Constance Meliosa, who wants the Leshys as showpieces to display at parties to her friends. The climax of the scenario will see the Player Characters crashing her afternoon tea party.

A Fistful of Flowers packs a lot into its sixteen pages and gives plenty for the Player Characters to do. There are problems to overcome and NPCs to interact with, the scenario providing multiple means for approaching either, and whilst the confrontation with the brute of an alchemist is likely to end in combat, the confrontation at the tea party need not do so. The Player Characters can sneak in, crash the party, persuade the guests that Lady Constance’s misdemeanours break the Wildwood treaty, and so on. Whilst the encounter in the alchemist’s shop is a traditional sneak and combat affair, the aristocrat’s fancy tea party deserves to be played out as a riotous assembly of flying skirts, scattered cakes, and soured sensibilities.

To accompany the adventure, A Fistful of Flowers includes four pre-generated Player Characters. These consist of a Gourd Leshy Druid, Leaf Leshy Bard, a Vine Leshy Barbarian, and a Fungus Leshy Rogue. Each is neatly arranged on their own individual pages and complete with background and clear, easy to read stats. Of course, the players do not have to use these, but could instead substitute their own characters, created using the rules in Pathfinder Lost Omens Ancestry Guide. Otherwise though, these are a decently diverse range of characters. 

Physically, A Fistful of Flowers is as well presented as you would expect for a release from Paizo Inc. Everything is in full colour, the illustrations are excellent, and the maps attractive. The only issue is that the map of the alchemist’s laboratory is not numbered, though the locations are easy enough to work out. The Game Master might want to create stats for Lady Constance and her guests, but neither are absolutely necessary to run the adventure.

A Fistful of Flowers is an entertainingly likeable adventure. It provides a diverse range of Player Characters and has a pleasing different feel to its fantasy than that atypical of most roleplaying fantasy and packs a lot of adventure into what is just a handful of pages. Overall, A Fistful of Flowers is a fun showcase for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Second Edition.