Hell House

This is a VERY basic adventure without much imagination behind it. It essentially amounts to a map with a list of devil-themed monsters, set in a house that is not described.

Out in the wilderness sits a large house. It has no windows, but is otherwise unremarkable, except for it’s larger than normal size. It’s scores of leagues from the nearest settlement. What lies within?

A rather simple high-level adventure, that’s what. This is a simple site-based adventure. The house is described, however there is no real hook provided. The author has a couple of throw-away lines about there being rumors of artifacts present, or about a missing girl with a 10,000 gp reward, however those are not real hooks. It’s a place you can drop in to your own campaign world, without any lead up or wilderness component. The house proper is mildly extra-dimensional. Cleric spells above 2nd level can’t be recovered. The front door locks behind the party, and passwall/teleport don’t work. Further, all magic make a save vs disintegrate upon entering the house, and for EACH hour they spend in the house, or loose a plus/charge/be destroyed. This is going to be a rough one kids.

Oh, and the house is CHOCKED FULL of devils and the like. Spined devils, spiked devils, screaming devils, barbed deviled, bearded devils, Abishai, Pit Fiends, and Erynyes. Not to mention large number of hell hounds, shadows, hags, a lich, crypt thing, eye of fear & flame … I think you get the picture. Just about everyone from the Monster Manual, The MM2, and the Fiend Folio makes an appearance.  There are only 40 keyed rooms and the map, especially the frontal portions, is very linear. This means that the party is going to be meeting and greeting almost every monster the product as almost none of the rooms are empty. The rooms have no description, just a monster description and, invariably, no treasure. A brief section at the beginning has a list of possible room types and a list of possible room furnishings. The final encounter is with the daughter of THE Devil, and she has the Codex of Infinite Spells. That’s it. Most of the keyed descriptions describe the monster and “refer to the FF for more information” type statements. A couple of rooms have more information, however the vast majority are just a room description.

It almost feels like two different products. A few of the initial rooms have more details. One has an animal skin that provides AC3 and protects from poison. Yeah! That’s what I like to see! Nary a DMG magic item reference in sight! Unique! And also an exception. This soon peters out and all we’re left with is monster descriptions. “#15. Large Room. 4 Bearded Devils. [Monsters Stats]” Come on! I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a product with as little flavor text. I must be missing something because this is NOT the kind of quality I expect from this author.