By Corey Hickson
Corey Hickson Games
OSE
Levels 1-2
The adventurers celebrated their newfound wealth in Crossroads Vale, a prosperous trading village, merrymaking and sharing their spoils with the townsfolk. Unbeknownst to them, the hoard was a trap left by the dragon for the foolish and unwary and every treasure they returned with is cursed! As twilight fell, Crossroads Vale descended into chaos. The cursed treasure unleashed strange monsters and terrible magic: an enraged manticore rampaged, petrifying townsfolk; the fountain in the market square churned with a possessed water elemental; and a parasitic ooze began animating the dead.
Life is Pain.
This eighteen page adventure presents thirteen possible encounters in five pages in a village suffering from an influx of cursed magical items. A loose collection of aimlessness wrapped in some Wouldn’t It Be Fun If does not an adventure make. This is also, likely, a one-shot.
“I wrote this adventure with fun at its heart. I hope it brings you and your friends laughter and a joyful game night” I, obviously, do not know the definition of the word “fun.” The adventure starts in an inn. The town has gone crazy. You’re the [butcher, baker, candlestick maker, mayor, alewife, etc.] Hank the Adventurer is there. He brought back a cartload of treasure from the local dragons lair and the entire town celebrated. Except. Shit started happening. There’s a water monster in the town fountain and a manticore is flying around the town square turning people to stone.
“Hank the Adventurer (pg. 5) is at a lone table, carefully plotting how to get as much of the cursed loot and escape the Vale before the slumber arrives.” Hank is described as “Voluble, Ignoble, and Determined.” He knows everyone in town is going to sleep at midnight, in seven hours, because of a magic orb in the town square. As far as I can tell, Hank is the only one in town to know this, besides the person who caused it, Ekert. “Hank now realizes the rumor he got from Ekert began this horrid night.” Sooo … how do you get from point A to point B? How do you get info out of Hank, learning about Ekert and the orb? Clearly, it has to come from Hank. And, I think, just as clearly, Hank, the 3HD warrior with a +3 sword who can shoot fire rays from a magic amulet, is described in such a way that he’s not going to want to tell the L1 party. So … what do we do? You are, I suppose, the village worthies, by want of being the player characters anyway, so, you’re motivated, I guess, to save your fellow villagers. And pissed, maybe that Hank won’t help you? This FEELS an awful lot like the adventures in which the quest giver/hook is an asshole and you have to beg to go on the adventure. I can get to The Town Is In Danger And We Need To Help! I’m having a much harder time with Hank, and getting the information you need from Hank in order to actually play the adventure.
Moving to the actual encounters, they come in three types. We’ve got monsters rampaging. This is the manticore in the town square and the water weird in the town fountain. The weird is a kind of puzzle, you need to figure out there’s a cursed coin in the fountain and remove it. So, a straight up fight with the manticore and/or lure it away (since the Midnight Sleep Orb is in the same place) and/or puzzle your way past the water weird. Then there are some kind of Weird Monster locations. The graveyard has a ghost and some zombies with only tenuous ties to whats going on and not much reason to explore. Likewise a farmhouse with two dudes turned in Beauty & Beast type couches. Ok. Sure? Just weirdness. And then finally some things to spice things up. There’s a wanderer table, which could really use cross-references to the named people you encounter, and some rando locales/encounters you can throw in. The best of these is probably the WIll o the Wisps. “Help, I’m trapped!” seems like a perfect things for them to do in a village full of chaos. Being able to use a classic monster like this in a way in which they fit, and the party won’t suspect, is great. The context f the encounter, the village in danger, leverages the Wisps core aspect, luring people to their doom in a dangerous situation. Hearing a “Help!” out of he blue puts you on edge. Hearing a “help!” in a situation in which you EXPECT to hear a help is good monster usage. (See also: harpy singing, etc.)
The encounters tend to be short, a column at most, and formatted well so they are easy to scan. Not everything makes sense; there is weird bolding to highlight things that should not, perhaps, be highlighted. And the ending of the adventure doesn’t really make sense. You presumably stop the madness, but, there’s no epilogue, which I think would have been nice, even in a one shot. O, maybe, especially in a one-shot.
So, it’s a one-shot. You need to work it to get to some coherance.
This is $3.50 at DriveThru. The preview is the first four pages. It should, as always, really show some encounters. The Hank NPC description gets you a good way there though, if you know, from this review, what the rest is like.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/536929/cursed-calamity-at-crossroads-vale?1892600
Isn’t the key to unlocking Hank literally the first thing mentioned in his description, “Wants: to find a new adventuring party…” – well that’s a way to get him interacting with the party and them trying to impress him (whether they truly mean to join him or not), or him noticing that they capably handle one of the puzzles/challenges in the village and then changing his mind on them and making an offer even after an initial rebuff…
Hank is also described as voluble, so easy to get talking and likely to let something slip at some point, even if he is reluctant to tell all. Could play him like he’s always talking to himself (opening if thief follows him and hears him monologuing) or under pressure in an encounter he blurts out blaming everything on Ekert – inviting a follow up.
There’s a bunch of ways that single motivation opens doors both early and potentially later. Then a few ways his voluble character trait provides opportunities. I think you are wrong on the Hank front, seems like he works just fine for this kind of set up.
What the fuck.
Judging book by it’s cover. Hard Pass.