A Magical Addiction

By Christopher Travers
Shadowroth press
OSRIC
Levels 6-8

In the town of Easthallow, all is not as it should be. The balance of magic has been disturbed. The townsfolk have an empowering but dangerous new habit. The dead rest uneasily wherever they lie, and it’s never been more relevant to be afraid of the dark.

This 48 page adventure is a small investigation that finishes with a raid on the assassins guild in a 32 room chateau, all with a drug addiction theme/pretext. When it leans in to that it hits well, but it doesn’t do that enough, doesn’t know how to edit itself, and relies far too much on the standard “stabby stabby stab” and munchkinism of using assassins. 

When this thing is touching on addiction and despair it does a great job. It hits just he right tone with it, using it in a way to bring to the vibe things that the players should recognize, as well as a humanity to the despair. It’s going to be hard to relate in this review what it does, because its surround by so much dross. But the relatable parts of this, the parts that the players can empathize with and bring their own context to, those are good. And it manages to walk the line without it being exploitative.

Actually, let me back off the drug angle and go with Criminality with a drug pretext. There’s a new drug on the streets. The party gets called in for a disturbed grave … which has had a SECOND body buried on top of it. Covered in runes. Tracking it back to a noble family, it’s a spy they sent in to t local gang to track down some drugs that were impacting their estate. That small time gang gets their supply from the dudes in the chateau. Parts of that plot are done in a way that is really great, along with a lot of missed opportunities. 

Let’s start with the rumour table. It has rumors ABOUT the party on it. “The party is responsible for the mysterious deaths in the village.” Of course! There are people disappearing and dying in the village/town. The party are outsiders. OF COURSE there are rumors about the party! This is that kind of “it makes perfect sense!” shit that I really get in to. When the content is relatable it is impactful. 

Theres another part where, in the guild lair, you find the body of a middle-aged woman. Dead. She’s not important. Just someone that crossed them in a minor way. That’s sad. The brutalism or pragmatism. Maybe it woul dhave been a bit more impactful if wed seen her in town, after all, we don’t KNOW shes just a rando, and knowing shes just a minor rando is what brings the impact to this. 

And that is going to be one of the major problems with this adventure. Well, no, it has a lot of problems that would make me never run this, but, at least with the implementation of its theme its a major problem, and since this adventure actually tries I figure the least I can do is actually comment on it. It has these REALLy great little things. Or, actually, little things that COULD be really great. But the players will never know about that lady. Just a rando middle aged woman who somehow fell afoul of the gang. Cheated them? Ranted in public? A junkie not paying or stealing? She lived across the street from a drug house? She looked at someone a fraction of  a second too long? Well, shes been tortured to death now. And the second body in the grave thing. A naked body, tortured to death with sigils on it, buried on top of an existing grave?! But again, not really fleshed out enough to make a true impact. The local thugs, upon hearing of the grave thing and theparty, the ones who put the body there? They are cleaning up. The person who asked you to look in to it? Missing, along with their family. House accidentally catches fire. A message to the town. And making sure that secrets don’t go farther. GOLD! Brutal pragmatism. But also just an aside with no impact, a missed opportunity. The local priest dude in charge of the graveyard? When the body shows up he swears the man was obviously killed in some sadistic ritual or sexual depravity; the noble family is known for it!” (They’re not, but whos gonna investigate that?)  Anyway, not enough of this ,and the stuff surrounding it.

What we do get is an adventure full of level 7 fights and level sic clerics and about a zillion four, five and six assassins and gish and … This is a level six through eight because … why? This could have been a great lower level crim adventure instead of a strained belief where every named assassin level shows up in some rando village.

The chateau hideout outside is described BEFORE the approach to the chateau is described. The uncle, who you go investigating the grave of, doesn’t ever get anything about him, even a name, other than The Uncle. It’s full of if/thens. The text is LONG PARAGRAPHS without much in the way of formatting and if full of first this happens and then this happened, interrupted only by LONG stat blocks that confuse the first this then this further. 

There is some great window dressing here. Or, the potential for some great window dressing. But the adventure text is just a nightmare to dig through and I suspect your highlighter is going to go dry working this up. What you end up with with just a simple hack (with no order or battle to speak of) with a bunch of assassins and some gish popping up here and there. Which, frankly, is enough of a red flag for any adventure. If I made a dungeon where you had to save or die every twenty feet then would that be fun? “This room has four tarrasque. The next one has seven tarrasque.” I really liked some of the context ni which this adventure happens, but the actual encounters are not great, at all, nor is the way they are presented.

This is $2 at DriveThru. No preview. Wah Wah!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/509685/a-magical-addiction?1892600