Dark Tapestry

Pathfinder Tales

by Elaine Cunningham

Pathfinder Channa Ti is a study in contradictions: a water druid in a desert land, her heritage half dark-skinned elven warrior from the deepest jungles and half human woman from the undead-ruled land of Geb. A hard-bitten adventurer with little use for those too weak to learn the desert's lessons, she keeps her weapons sharp, and her tongue even sharper. Yet when a strange merchant from the distant land of Vudra hires her to recover an artifact known as the Reliquary of the Drowned God, Channa Ti quickly finds herself in over her head, going up against bestial slavers, dark cults, and deadly creatures from beyond the stars.

From New York Times best-selling author Elaine Cunningham comes a story of blood, sand, and betrayal, set in the award-winning world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and originally published in the Legacy of Fire Adventure Path.

Genres: Fantasy

48 pages, ebook

First published March 1, 2009

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.


Elaine Cunningham is an American fantasy author.

Reviews

[AoC · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure how much Dark Tapestry directly benefits from having a slightly higher page count than other Pathfinder Short Tales, but end result easily puts it among the better ones I've checked out so far.

We step into the shoes of a half-elf water Druid Channa Ti who, paradoxically enough, finds herself operating in a desert land due to series of circumstances. What starts off with rescuing herself from being sold into slavery and pragmatically weighing her options, even shaking hands with the hyena woman who sold her out in the first place, eventually builds up to the quest of recovering the fabled Reliquary of the Drowned God by following a whale-skin map. You see, Pathfinders do crazy things like that to keep the world safe and there are, naturally, opposing forces looking to do the exact opposite. If there's a particular flair to Dark Tapestry I enjoyed it would be that our protagonist is a Druid who actually acts like one by shapeshifting into various animal forms and striving to balance her actions even when her gut response would be bias.

There are some problems inherent to a story originally released as web fiction in standalone chapters aka you get some really jarring callbacks and recaps you don't need in 40-something pages, but that's a minor issue. There's proper planning and build up when you look at the finished story which is admirable considering there's quite a few turnabouts and characters running their own agendas. Channa Ti gets caught up in those, but is quick on the uptake so the reader is never annoyed by feeling smarter than the character herself. As is customary you don't need to know much about Pathfinder to enjoy the story seeing as Dark Tapestry will tell you everything you need to know about the immediate setting.

[Steven Cole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Long ago I had a subscription to the earliest Paizo adventure paths. They had fiction. I read slowly, however, and never actually got to the fiction part of them. Years later, that fiction had been collected into eBooks and I picked them up in a Humble Bundle. Finally, I've started reading this stuff.

Dark Tapestry was published as part of the Legacy of Fire Adventure Path, in six separate installments.

And- it's an early look at the life and times of a Pathfinder. This Pathfinder is a companion-free water druid, which is a nifty sort of individual. I enjoyed the possibilities that were presented here, though I can't imagine any of my players asking to concentrate on underwater adventures.

The fiction was... fine... It's clearly meant to be the sort of fiction that stirs the imagination of Game Masters reading it, and not necessarily fine fiction on its own. Things like the MacGuffin that went unnamed in the first chapter suddenly being referred to as the "Reliquary of the Drowned God" in a later chapter, kind of like we were supposed to have known that already.

This was written early in the life of the Pathfinder universe (before the 1st edition Pathfinder rules had been published); and it really does feel like the effort here is to quickly fill out the lore and feeling of this universe, more than it is to demonstrate character development or develop a philosophy.

3 of 5 stars

[Tomasz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rather chaotic, rather random, rather unimpressive. At least not overly long.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the idea of a druid based on the elements. I thought that played out nicely. Otherwise, nothing that piqued my interest in this part of the Pathfinder world.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting little adventure, but the twist at the end might have been a little too much. One of the auxiliary characters switched apparent alignmenta couple too many times for my taste. Good read otherwise, however.

[Dan Chilwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very short but entertaining novella occurring within the Pathfinder universe. Worth the read for fans of the genre and provides an interesting enough plot twist at the end.