Werewolves of Lenden

By Christopher Wilson
Self Published
OSE
Levels 1-3

The Armlaws Guild is the true power in the city of Lenden, accepting protection money and extorting nearly every citizen. It is said that they even have contacts inside of the court of King Wulfwin. It is somewhat surprising then that any outsider would attempt to contest the most powerful criminal organization in the Border Lands. When the characters witness a peculiar and seemingly random murder during a heist, they become embroiled in the underground politics of the largest city in the Kingdom of Cassex. They may even live long enough to uncover an even darker secret of the Armlaws and the local nobility…

This eighty page adventure has the party investigating the death of a wererat. It puts most of the adventure behind die rolls, hides massive parts of it, embraces trivia and backstory, and is full of lots of high HD creatures that can’t be damaged by the mundane weapons of your level ones. There is little to indicate the designer knows what a published adventure is.

This is a rough one, so hang in there. You’re visiting the wizards guild. You all enter a room, for various reasons, and see a wererat exit the window having stolen an ever full purse. Chasing him, you find him disemboweled in a nearby alley. There are potential tracks to the sewers, a lead to a graveyard, and a couple of others. Turns out there MIGHTT be a turf war going on, led by a werewolf. Thieves guild in the sewers, and others, lead you to a nearby manor home of a couple who have just lost their son, hunting a beast. Following up on that leads to another manor where THAT couple leads to a cave to ambush you, they being werewolves and having captured, not killed, the son of the first manor couple, trying to turn him. “It takes 27 days” From there you find the hideout with the main werewolf and his thieves guild, who are the ones who gutted the initial thief. Got it? A lot of people telling you outright where to go next. It’s plagued by the mundane, overwriting, putting information behind skill checks, and a lack of decent organization for its many threads.

Let’s look a bit at the overwriting, which plagues this. Time and time again things are defined or extrapolated on that add little to no value to the adventure. This is an entry from the city wandering table: “2d6 Sailors from a Foreign Kingdom: At any given time there can be between forty and fifty ships docked in Lenden’s Port District. Most of the crews of these ships will be found in the Port District, though they can be encountered in other locations, as well (the Mercantile District, for example).” Yes, that IS the definition of “2d6 foreign sailors.” The text adds nothing to the adventure, it’s not an encounter it’s just a definition of what 2d6 foreign sailors mean. They do nothing, they add no color. Or, this random keyed entry for the FULLY keyed inn the party is staying at in which nothing takes place: “4. Staircase to Upper Floors: This simple staircase creaks with every footstep and seems to sway a bit, but is sound.” It’s like describing a cobblestone. To what end is this needed?

A full description, including background, for the chapel. Which is meaningless to the adventures, with little formatting to help a DM focus on important aspects of it. There’s no point to any of this. It’s eighty pages long because of all of this. You have to dig and dig to find information about the threads that ARE important, dodging and fighting your way through the trivia.

Travelogue entries for a random bridge that has no bearing on the adventure. This can work if we’re home basing. It can work as as trivia for s short stop. But not this way.

Following up on the thief leads you to the alley where the disemboweled thief lies. And then “The citizens that sent up the hue and cry for the city watch will immediately begin pointing and shouting at the first group of characters on the scene, making the incorrect assumption that they had something to do with the murder.” And thusly another group of murder hobos is born. Sure, color and complications, but also it needs to be done in a way that it doesn’t discourage the party. Why take initiative if they arbitrarily punished for it? Never be the first to walk through the door.

Lizardfolk and grig villages. Wererats. Werewolves. High HD. Not damaged by mundane weapons. This is a deathtrap masquerading as an adventure. We run away in an OSR game. In an OSR game that is DESIGNED for exploration. In a plot based game, in which the enemies need to be dispatched in order to advance the plot that they are blocking then balance becomes more important. You might as well put the mcguffin in a circle of 100 hungry Type 6 demons spoiling for a fight. At level one. At one point you climb down a ladder in to a room with wererats in it. Ain’t no way levels one to threes are surviving that.

Information is spread out everywhere. Events mixed in with leys. Information repeated in multiple places, with details spread across them. Old Captain Nedev has four or more places where the initial meeting has details spread throughout. Trap porn is prevalent. And we can see from the entries above that every contingency is covered “unless blocked by a wall or closed door.” And this all happens over and over and over again. You have to fight everything here to follow what is supposed to be going on and run it.

Yet another of the numerous inn entries. NO HOT BATH! Whatever shall I do not knowing about that? Take cold baths, I guess. Fall apart at the table?

The stuttering priest is in bad taste. Did I mention the long read-alouds? How about the long one in a funky font, reproducing the character handout. I’m all for torturing the players with funky handwriting fonts but not the DM. Information needs to transferred efficiently and effectively to the DM.

And then there are the MASSIVE number of threads that are blocked by a skill check or plot device. It is entirely possible that of the five leads presented at the murder scene that all of them will be failed or not apply, except for the guard captain telling you “he’s part of the thieves guild.” Later in the adventure we get this “On a success, Captain Nedev believes the characters and agrees to release them. If the characters have already investigated the Armlaws Guild in the sewers and tell Nedev that they suspect that there is a mole in the Guild of Labor, he will admit that he already knows:” Well, what if we fail? No plot thread for you! Over and over again the adventure hides the rest of it behind skill checks. At level one. Just like with the high HD enemies that can’t be damaged by mundane weapons, this means the entire adventure is fudged. There is no real agency for he players and their characters in this. The various threads and plots have chapters devoted to them, with long page counts, which will most likely be skipped over even if you do make your checks, that entire chapter not being applicable for the thread you are following up on.

I can kind of get what the adventure is going for. But the set up is strained, the plot execution is confused, the enemies overwhelming, and the text padded out.

This is $9 at DriveThru. The preview is six pages. It could have used some key entries, but you do kind of get to see the VERY basics of the backstory, which helps a lot with understanding what is going on.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/546611/werewolves-of-lenden-ose-edition?1892600