Clockwork-Bureaucrat Debt Collection Agency

By Andrew Duvall
Sketchy Van RPG
OSE
"Low Levels"

Karilaz Winræd is a senile druid who lives alone in his crumbling hillside monastery.  He keeps to himself as he single-mindedly observes and catalogs the forest fauna, his life’s passion. Decades ago, supernatural powers of hierarchical organization were leased to Karilaz by a patron of the Order of Specificity from the Plane of Law.  Now, in his old age and decade of hermitage, he hasn’t keep up with his end of the bargain, and the Clockwork-Bureaucrat Debt Collection Agency has come to bring all accounts current.

This sixteen page adventure presents twelve rooms in a druids house. Which are monastery ruins? New lows are achieved in intentionality as somehow empty room after empty room somehow yet manages to fill seven pages.

Let  me start this review of right: Fuck you; I like modrons. I think they are cool. The modern take on them is shit, but the concept is cool. Fortunately for us all, this adventure doesn’t have modrons in it. It has Clockwork Bureaucrats. No, that’s not a reskin of the name modron to get past a trademark or something. It has nothing to do with a modron in any way other than the word clockwork was used in the same sentence as bureaucrat. The One and Prime would be disappointed.

So, druid dude signed some contract and a clockwork dude has shown up to enforce it, along with two rhino man enforcers. Cause … TMNT? I don’t know. There’s no hook or context for the adventure, so you somehow show up to a monastery set in the roots of a big tree. That’s the location. You’re gonna get nothing more. Not from me, I’ll gladly tell you everything. From the designer. Ruined monastery set in the roots of a big tree. I guess, as the DM, you can make the party just stumble on this or have some dude in town send you out here to check on his friend or something. The usual dreck. You’ll get no help from the designer. I know, some people have different thoughts on hooks. But, also, if you’re going to want me to give a flying fuck about dude, and so something to resolve things, then you better hook me the fuck up. Or something? I mean, yeah, I guess I want to play D&D tonight so we do the thing, but, still. Maybe just the lightest pretext for why I give a flying fuck about a level 9 druid with a staff of striking and ring of spell turning? (Don’t worry, you can’t kill him and take that shit, he just turns in to a bug swarm if threatened.) 

Ok, on to the rooms I guess.  Room one. The room title is the ever so descriptive “What’s Going On Here?” and the description reads: “A big and mean creature’s rough booming sneer can be heard taunting someone in a distant room. ? The voices are muffled behind the closed doors” Good luck with that room. That’s it. That’s all. What IS going on here? Is it a bedroom? A ruin? An entryway? No soup for you! Another room, titled “Spilled Druids Bag”  reads “Contents of a druids bag lay scattered across the center of the room.” I note that the dude lives here. Nothing. This is the barest of bare bone minimalism, expanded on. I guess the good part is that its not expanded on by much so you don’t have to slog as much through the text.

One of my favorite rooms says “Dried moonpool footprints that lead to Room 9 anyone who drinks moonwater can see them glow.” That descriptions comes from room nine. As in, thats in the room nine room description. Where do they lead? Fuck if I know. 

The rhino men have 4HD and have 2 attacks each. You meet them in a pair. Pretty sure that’s gonna be a very rough one at level one. And they are unavoidable, blocking your path in room two, the only way in past the entrance in room one. So, you enjoy that, ok?

It is astounding to me that things like this exist. No real interactivity. Blocking encounters that might be a TPK. No real room descriptions. No context. I guess the designer made a thing? That’s an accomplishment? More ennui for the rest of us! Other than that … there’s nothing here. Stab (hopefully) a couple of things. Another one of those cutesy adventures. A five room dungeon expanded to twelve. Joy. I wanted a modron 🙁

This is $2 at DriveThru. There’s no preview. Fork over the cash Sucker!!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/497422/clockwork-bureaucrat-debt-collection-agency?1892600