Shadow from the Stars

By Matt Kline
Creations' Edge Games
S&W
Levels 8-10

That covers got fuck all to o with the adventure, so ignore it.

An evil cult has taken over the Bronze Aerie Observatory. They’ve used the site’s main telescope to fulfill an ancient prophecy, calling their “Dark Lord” down from the stars. The being is trapped inside the observatory, for now.

This eighteen page adventure uses a few pages to describe a nine room observatory. No interactivity. No good descriptions. A paragraph formatting. It is just another shovelware title.

My experience, with OD&D, has been that once you reach level 6 you are pretty much bad asses. Sure, maybe a little fragile, but, also, you can pretty much nuke shit from orbit. People should be shitting themselves when you drop by for tea. So, this is a level 8-10 adventure. And it’s nothing more than a simple hack. Show up and stab some shit in a simple nine room dungeon. You are offered $5k to go to an observatory and collect some star charts. They give you five days rations and some horses if you don’t have them. So … you killed Great Cthulhu last week, are flying around in his severed upside down head, and defeated the monstrous deGrazzi Kingdoms last Tuesday. But, sure, do a fucking fetch quest for $5k. And, the treasure inside is so minimal as to be not really worth picking up. Maybe, I don’t know, $15k worth? Split? There’s no fucking XP there. But, sure, I’ll send in my level 10 dude. 

Oh, oh, and inside he can fight a bunch of 8HD cultists! Cause, now, level 8’s are just running around the fucking countryside! Not that any of them have names, but, whatever, right? We just needed something to stab and so “8HD cultists” made the pick. 

Interactivity, right? You stab shit. Then you stab some more shit. Then you stab some shit. Then you talk to the bad guy, a giant floating head. Maybe help him out, or, maybe stab him. Stab stab stab. Stab stab stab. … what fun we’re having … 

The writing sucks ass. The first line of the first room is “It looks as though a struggle recently occurred here.” That’s a conclusion. We don’t do conclusions in read-aloud. We describe things. That same room has all of the history of the dude that unlocks the doors. He’s not in the room. His history has NOTHING to do with the actual gameable content in the room. But it’s sure as fucked shoved the fuck in there, clogging shit up. Orm Redzig is stationed there during the day, folks. The key he uses to unlock the doors is currently missing. Not that the fucking party would know that, at the fuck all. 

Here’s a fun one. The room name is “Staff’s Quarters.”  The read-aloud describes a dorm. The first line of the DM notes is “This is the living quarters for the observatory’s staff. For serious?! I had no fucking idea! It’s just padding. It’s the repeated use of the same information. Multiple rooms read-aloud starts with “This room serves as the observatory’s blah blah blah” Exact words! 

This is just shovelware. It mimics the form of an adventure but has very little to do with one. There is no interactivity. There are no evocative descriptions. There is not useful formatting, everything just appearing in long multiple paragraph form. It is the most simple adventure possible. Barely one step removed from a minimally keyed dungeon, except it’s just got more words. 

Shovel it out man! Shove. It. Out.

This is $1.50 at DriveThru. The preview is four pages. You get to see some wandering monsters on the way to the observatory. Shit ass preview since its show sus nothing of the core.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/418665/Shadow-from-the-Stars-A-Swords–Wizardry-MiniDungeon?1892600