The Order of the New Dawn

By Rustic Ink
Self Published
Shadowdark & "OSR"
Levels: 4

The Order of the New Dawn: Set in the heart of the Iron Duchy, where political tensions are tearing the city apart, a dark cult grows in the shadows, weaving intrigues and threatening to consume everything. The recent death of the ducal family has left the city in chaos, with no legitimate heir to restore order. Ambitious nobles, wealthy merchants, and unscrupulous military figures fight for control of the region. In this volatile climate, the Dragon Zoryak, lurking in the city’s sewers, leads a fanatical cult that seeks to seize power. While the cult’s leader knows that his magical powers are granted by the dragon himself, the followers believe they are serving a divine entity named Zoryak, who promises a “New Dawn” and a better future for them all. As the cult’s influence spreads, mysterious disappearances begin to plague the surface

This eleven page page adventure presents fifteen rooms in a dragons lair. That is also a cult. That is also a sewer. That is also a mine. With a mad scientist. The read-aloud isn’t terrible, but the encounters are essentially just stabbing this rooms monster and rolling a save for a random pretextual effect combined with some DM/designer fiat. Not cool.

The OSR category on DriveThru is littered with Mork Borg and Shadowdark adventures. And this, it turns out, is also a Shadowdark adventure. I probably would have skipped it if I had noticed that. Nothing against Shadowark, but I’m not interested in it.  And why is that? Sewers. And Mines. And a dragon. And a cult. And a mad scientist. I guess when in doubt just chuck everything in there. And none of it really works. It’s sewers. But also the sewers break in to mines! And there’s a cult! But its controlled by a dragon! With a Mad Scientist lieutenant! Who creates mechanical monsters! Sure man, whatever. 

There a turn of phrase here and there that is not terrible, usually in the read-aloud. “An old, rusted iron ladder descends from the market alley into a dark and foul-smelling sewer canal. The atmosphere is thick with humidity and the distant echoes of dripping water. A central channel divides the sewer into two narrow walkways through which sewage fluids slowly flow westward.” Yeah, ok. I’m not the happiest with “old” but we’ve got some dripping water and thick humidity in there with some foul smelling water. Let’s move on the negative, yeah?

Wandering monster have a 50% chance EVERY TWO ROUNDS. That seems a tad rough. The rumor table is boring and abstracted. “A mechanical monster was spotted dragging an unconscious woman through the alleyways of the market in the West Port District.” Well color me thrilled I guess. This is the kind of useless and meaningless writing that just drags me down for the rest of the day. Give the fucking thing some life! Be specific! Not wordy, specific. Spotted by who? A mechanical monster? No. Describe it. That’s the way fucking people work. “Pimp Ray swears he saw something with two heads, shadowy, drag that matchstick girl, no, the other one, down …”  How about a hoooky mchookerson? “A humble woman, wife of a missing sailor, begs for help. Her only clue is that he was last seen in the market of the West Port District. Her faith in heroes drives her to offer everything she has, even if it’s little, and her gratitude will be eternal.” It’s all just non-specific drivel. There’s nothing here to riff on because there’s nothing here. 

The formatting here is weird. It’s a smaller font, maybe four entries to a page. Each one boxed. Boxed text is shaded, bolding and bullets are used. And yet it looks like some wall of text. It’s possible, I guess, to follow the individual rooms and the entries, but man. The boxes around each room do something to this to make me just tilt my head in angst. It’s also fully committed to this, so, for example, the first room, the main sewer line, has this line in it “If the players follow the clues leading to the market, they will find an entrance to the sewer system in one of the market’s alleys.” Thus the transition from the hooks to the dungeon is handled in room one. Which is fine, I guess? It just somehow transgresses against conventional forms .. and for no good reason. And I have to be down for that, I don’t believe in a set formula. But it’s just jarring. 

The interactivity here is low effort. You get in a fight. You trigger a trap. The traps are weird. It’s just a Roll A Save trap, in ome cases, with little to no warning. There’s this pretext sometimes “its a magic trap that effects you if you try to leave the room” but, its just a save and something happens because the pretexts are just “magical effect.” But, then in another place, there’s a trap that more of a special, r puzzle. There’s a read-aloud that says “Halfway through the passage, a thin beam of dim light crosses from one side to the other. The rocks on the floor in this section appear unusually smooth and marked with scars from fire.” 

We get some descriptions that tell us, in boxed text “The air is heavy and warm [GREAT!] filled with a mineral scent [Great!] that irritates the throat.” I’m not sure I would have put that very last part, the throat, in the description. I’d have left it out and roleplayed it, as a mystery that the party doesn’t know about, letting them make the leap of logic from mineral scent to irritated throat.  In another place we get some abstracted descriptions “The images on the tapestries are very disturbing.” And thats the FOLLOW UP description. The initial one says something like sacrifices or something. It’s just explaining, again, WHY you have to make a save in the room. Because the tapestries are disturbing. 

“Karstov and his concubine (a Fanatic) are indulging their base instincts” When you put sex in an adventure then you want to talk to the player about sex and you’re horny. Unless its his mom hes fucking, and its integral to the adventure, I don’t need to know. 

The dragon, the cultists, the mechanical monsters … no descriptions for them. Enjoy your abstracted adventure. The cultists are just dudes. Who wrote that great thig for the cult in the that WotC Tiamat adventure? THOSE were great cultists! Oh, the dragons treasure hoard does self destruct and melt in 1d4 turns. You think they mean forty minutes? I can snag a lot in ten minutes. Also, I don’t really care if it slags; I’ll haul it out and get it made into ingots. 

This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $1. The preview is all eleven pages, so, nice preview. I approve! Well, of the preview …

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/513164/the-order-of-the-new-dawn?1892600