The Obsidian Anti-Pharos

By Alex Mayo
LotFP
LotFP
Low Levels

1631 – A strange island materializes off the cost of Plymouth, England. At the center f the island stands a lighthouse, but instead of warning nearby ships of danger, it hypnotically draws them to the island’s deadly shores. Where did this island come from, and what is the source of its occult power?

This 24 page digest adventure details a tower with nine rooms along with a small island with two tribes on it. Rife with errors, it’s another Wizard Tower Out Of Time adventure … combined with the signature LotFP screw ending. It’s an ok job, but 22 pages for what it is seems long, and the loot seems quite low for the risk involved.

Ok, so, lighthouse shows up ten miles off shore, shooting strange lights up in to the sky. Ships within ten miles get hypnotically drawn to it never to appear again. On the island, full of thick woods, are two tribes of humans at war with each other, and a black obsidian tower in the middle that they consider holy. It’s actually a wizards tower, cast back in time, and the tribesmen are the former servants, now in warring factions. Inside, a trick to getting in to, you maybe get to the top and turn off the light. And get screwed by the wizard who shows up at just the right time. This is all pretty much the standard LotFP formula for a location like this, with the usual assortment of tricks and traps. 

There are a few standout portions to the adventure. The two warring tribes are an interesting concept, each having a color theme that they paint themselves … and try to paint the tower doors. There’s a nice “tree starfish” monster mentioned that I think would be fun in a thick forest setting. There’s a prison room that is an interesting “figure it out on your own” room. You’re on a platform, surrounded by an acid pool. A keycard in the acid, visibly. Another platform, 40 feet away. Fuck around a find out. No real solution obviously presented, just a challenge for the party to overcome. Nice! Another room has a mechanical crock with its mouth open. You have to reach in to pull out a key from its stomach. A Classic! 

Also, there are two keys and picking the wrong one will get you attacked. Also, there’s no way to know which witch is which. Its hooks are lame, being shipwrecked or getting paid 1000sp each to Stop The Light by the merchants guild. The lights on top of the tower are it searching the cosmos for the wizards mind to resurrect him … which happens just as the characters enter the room with his body. Uh huh. I don’t really mind the LotFP screw job endings; its a little Broodmother SkyFortress/Shake Up Your Worldy. Which is fine. But, the treasure total being about 2500sp … and all from the croc encounter? That seems a bit harsh to me. 

The thing is rife with editing errors. I think its set in Plymouth … although Portsmith is mentioned as well. Pretty sure that’s a mistake? The text claims light is marked on the map … but I don’t think it actually is. The tribes use blue and yellow paint … but in another place red paint is mentioned as a color … Yellow and Blue make green, right?  Other sentences are clearly missing the first phrases of the sentence. “The adventure with the adventurers shipwrecked on the island.” That the entire first sentence of the second hook. Just weird mistakes an editor should have caught. 

Other things are weird, from a design standpoint. The hatch in to the tower has nine random locations around the island map … but it also appears randomly on the wandering monster table? And that island map is hard to call a map, not really functioning as one at all. I don’t get how you are supposed to use it at all. Basically, draw a big circle and place a dot in the center. Now just randomly throw nine numbers on the map, for the hatch locations. Everything is heavy forest. Scale is one inch is one mile. Uh … sure man. 

Speaking of one mile … the island is four miles across. The center is a big clearing. Let’s say, 1.5 miles from the shore to the clearing. 5280 feet in a mile, so, roughly 8000 feet to get to the center from the shore. The party moves at ? speed in the forest. Let’s generously say 120 feet per turn, unencumbered movement, 40’ with the rough terrain/forest penalty. So, 40 per turn. You make a wandering monster check, a 1 on a d4, ONCE PER TURN. That’s roughly 200 checks, right? With roughly 50 encounters? On a table with ten entries? Is that serious? Did I fuck it up? Did the designer fuck it up, or the editor? It can’t possibly be meant to be played that way.

So you get to the island. Each tribe has about, idk, 80 warriors in it, let’s say. You need a keycard from one tribe to get in the tower. A device from the other tribe can locate the grate that the key opens, the hatch, that teleports around randomly. And you have to figure all of this out. And you have to figure out not to touch the doors, which teleport you to the acid prison. I don’t know how you do this. There’s a dude on the wandering table that also has a keycard, so, maybe you just murder him and then wander until you find a hatch? None of it makes sense. I’m guessing this is some handwavey shit, in play, and then they tried to write it down.

And the tribe descriptions? The little sections that describe them? They don’t mention the keycard or the hatch locator device. That’s just mentioned in the text. What the fuck man? Why? And, along with all of this, you need to figure out the solution to one puzzle is turning four bedpost knobs in a specific order, with no clues. And you don’t get to the end of the adventure without figuring that out? I’m all for letting the party figure things out, but, some of this just seems whacko crazy, especially for a low level party with no divination magic to speak of.

I don’t know. The room descriptions tend to the column or page length, which seems like a lot. Some mechanics, a room description, and then more mechanics. It tends to flow pretty well, but not putting the description up front still pisses me off.

It’s a wizards tower. It’s ok. Nothing too special. No real cash treasure. Ok set up, but could use a good fleshing out, both outside the tower and in.

I don’t know how much this thing is. I bought it at GenCon, so, it cost a corset, two skull candles, and some token thing for keeping strict time records for an Indi RPG. Also, I got a selfie with Raggi! Also, Kelvin & Alex are the only people writing for LotFP anymore? All of the recent releases have their name on it? Also, I got to hear some rando fan ask him about the Z Man. I’m taking pity on Raggi since I’m sure he’s had to weather this conversation about a gajillion times before. It was fun watching this play out, though, as a nameless and clueless bystander.

I don’t know where/how to buy it, not in person. It’s on on the LotFP storefront yet, or on the DriveThru page yet.