The Thing in the Well

By Mario Barbati
0one Games
Shadowdark
Levels 2-3

They say the well ran dry generations ago. They do not say why. They say the Pickmans have always been good stewards of this land. They do not say at what price. The villagers go on tending their fields and burying their dead, as their grandfathers did, and their grandfathers before them — and they ask no questions of the hours between midnight and dawn, when the shadows move against the moon and something scrapes its way up old Stones. But the bargain is fraying. The kidnappings have begun. A child has drawn a face she should never have seen. And in the lightless places beneath the village, a patient, brainhungry thing has remembered the taste of fresh thought. You have been called to investigate. You will wish you had not.

This 28 page adventure presents a small investigation and eleven room dungeon with a decent number of ghouls. It’s got a couple of interesting ideas, but the dungeon, proper, as well as the investigation kind of falls down with little flavour to help deliver on its promise.

I am gently dipping my toes in Shadowdark again, if the theme seems particularly appealing, under the premise, yet to be proven, that Shadowdark and OSE are kissing cousins. I love a well. Just like waterfalls, chandeliers, bookcases and chasms, there should always be something in the well. And I’m down for it! I like things. I like wells. I find things in wells appealing, generally.

You show up to a village where there have been  disappearances recently, people snatched in the night and no one seems to know what is going on, but they are scared. It doesn’t help that the local lord and his heir died recently during a hunting accident and his brother, next in line, is travelling and not due back for some time. I wonder, maybe, if you might like to help?

I’m really liking a couple of things going on in this one even though the totality of the package is not great. First, it’s doing a great job with monster descriptions. Right before the stat block we get a little description like “Gray-skinned, slavering undead with whipping tongues and flat, reptilian faces.” or “A giant canine with a gray pelt, yellow eyes, and dripping jaws. “ That’s the way you write a fucking monster entry! None of this ecology bullshit but something directly applicable to the game at the the table. That’s what I want to relate to the players. Not “2 ghouls attack!” but rather a couple of naked dudes, grey skins, loping, flat faces, long tongues sticking out. Or I want to note some yellow eyes staring out from the forest in the dark. Monster descriptions should focus on how the party will experience them. This helps the DM bring the encounter to life and turns it from a rote encounter with a coupe of wolves in to something more than that. Great job on the monster descriptions!

There’s also a couple of events presented that can help the DM add some life to the adventure. The third and last is that the missing brother shows up with his henchment. So, to be clear, the local lord and direct heir of his are dead from a legit hunting accident with a bear in the woods. Witnessed by several people with them and the bear was killed. Shit happens, you know? But now the lord brother, and therefore legit heir, has returned from travelling with his retinue of, uh, thugs? Hangers-on? His friends and henchmen. And he, gentle readers, is intent on the status quo. Come see the violence inherent in the system as the hobos, and townfolk, see that might makes right when you’re the dude with the title and the violent men to back it up. I fucking love this. It’s a decent pretext for the local lord not being present and handling the situation and it brings home, perhaps, the shadows and corners that the party need eek a living out of, out of sight by those in power. At least until they are strong enough to be their own power. This is not handled well in the adventure, just a couple of notes, and it really should have been expanded upon to help complicate the situation, perhaps with some specific events and little more personality to the henchment and returning lord. But the concept here is great.

Turns out that the local lords family, a long time ago, made a deal with the monsters in the well. They give them the bodies of everyone who dies in the town and in return the monsters fuck off and it’s easy living in a fertile valley for everyone. When someone dies they go the next night to dig up their fresh grave and put the body in the well, with no one in the village the wiser. No harm no foul, eh? Except dude and his heir died so there’s no one left to send the bodies down the well. So the monsters in charge, and his ghoul minions, have been freelancing a bit When the lord brother returns he’s going to do what it takes to stay in power, which includes returning to sending bodies down the well. How does the party deal with this? Presumably, the party returns from their well trip about the time the dude returns. Who the townfolk gonna believe? What proof the party got? How much violence is willing to be waged? Who’s gonna let the party dig up the graveyard to show that all the graves are actually empty? You letting some dirty vagabonds  just in town less than a day dig up moms grave?Like I said, not enough is done with this, there are few specifics and even the tone is a little off in what there is, but the potential there is FUCKIGN GREAT. There’s always a power structure in place and the party is generally upsetting it when they show up to do whatever and thats gonna make those in power not pleased.

Other than that …

There’s supposed to be an investigation here. The name of the adventure is THE THING IN THE WELL. The cover has a monster crawling out of a well. The family name is Pickman. Like, an investigation? Really? We’re telegraphing a little hard here and I must question how much investigation there’s really going to be with all going on. Change the family name and don’t run from the physical booklet, I guess?

It’s got some decent ideas, but it doesn’t really know how to put them together in to a whole. How do you go from the mayor telling people have seen things to getting in to the well, much less unraveling what the Pickmans family involvement is? The family home is presented, over a couple of pages, for the party to snoop around in (along with windows, yeah!) but how do you get to that? Or the empty graveyard? (Although, the well, the lords home and the graveyard, as well as any churches, should be on every adventurers shortlist in every adventure.) When you meet with the mayor there’s a little girl drawing on her desk (DANGER WIL ROBINSON! DANGER!) Turns out shes the little Pickman daughter being watched by the mayor until her uncle shows back up in town. This then is your clue in to the adventure. Also, she sees a ghost in her house sometimes. Also she saw the monsters and drew a picture (the cover, with the ghouls coming out of the well.) So, you know, better make sure and question the little qirl. A lot. 

The pickmans house is decent, nothing really going on in terms of monsters but poking around finds a secret door, a ledger in the town hall room off all the dead in the village and few other subtle clues that supplement the secret door to the basement, which is what every party should be looking for. From there you can find a diary, collect some family heirlooms and conduct a ritual that lets you fight and kill the main baddie. Again, the elements here, from the heirlooms to the rituals to some special family pendants (non-magical) and so on are pretty decent. (And, vaguely CoC-like.) 

It is in the specifics that the adventure falls down. In particular int he dungeon, the room descriptions are not very well done at all. The fact that the main plot is “undone” with a diary is always lame. Designers need to convey information WITHOUT diaries and monologues. The descriptions have history, backstory, padding and so on, instead of evocative environments to adventure in. “The west wall of this room has collapsed, and a terrible Carcass Eater coming from the neighboring caves has made its nest here. The animal tries to steal food from the ghouls when it can, and often fights against them” All of that to justify it’s at half hit points. Sometimes there’s are weird “you” statements in the adventure, like “. You cannot say for certain, but you seem to read on that distorted and deformed face an expression of surprise mixed with hope.”

The dungeon rooms need an overhaul. There need to be more events and situations and little vignettes and so on. There’s LOTS of ghouls here (how many ghouls is too many for a level 2-3 OSE party?), this could cause a retreat … maybe the ghouls raid while the party is resting? This just needs more integration in to the village, in to real life. It’s ALMOST there in certain ways, there really IS a ghost, but not the one the little girl saw. That’s cool! 

The intro information, before the keys, is all over the place. It’s like one of my reviews. 😉 Just information mixed in without seemingly reason. It doesn’t flow logically. The keys ARE easy to read but when it comes to background information its just all over the palace, with information showing up all over the place. 

I like the concept of this adventure, and some of the things it is trying to do. Elements show a pretty decent understanding of how to complicate things and create a kind of interesting social environment to adventure in. The investigation portion, proper, is decent, but the supporting information around it is quite weak and disorganized. Hmmm, have I done a good job here? I think I’ve done a shitty job. Let me try again. The dungeon is a hack, along with a puzzle to solve, from the diary, a kind of “find the six keys” thing in order to kill the final boss. The descriptions in the dungeon are weak as well. But the content in which it takes paces, with the uncle, the major, the little girl, the gravedigger (who is great!) the ghost in the house but also there is a real ghost also … these things are great. But the play AROUND these things is not great. The village, the independent nature of the ghouls and their excursions, the meshing in of the mayor and little girl to the village and house and graveyard and adventure … these ties are tenuous and need some little vignettes or minor events to hel strengthen the fear and vibe of the village. I mean, that IS a part of an investigation, right? 

Pretty close on this one, in that the ideas are great but just poorly executed.

This is $7 at DriveThru. There is no preview. Boo! Boo! SHow up a few pages, especially the keys, so we can make an informed purchasing decision!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/568481/the-thing-in-the-well?1892600