By Jonah Lemkins
Self Published
OSR
Levels "Low"
Long have these borderlands been sparsely populated by only the savviest and hardiest folk. But now, moves are being made, deals are being cut, and new & old evils are rearing their heads. Heroes are in short supply – and sorely needed. The fate of the Ridgeland is in your hands!
This 28 page ‘adventure overview’ presents seven hexes, each with a number of sites in them, and four ‘dungeon ideas’ in a small wilderness area brimming with shit going on. Bryce likes a lot going on and this certainly does that. It also cheaps out on “adventure” by just giving some guidelines instead of actual adventure. It is an intriguing concept, though, even if it’s not an adventure.
This thing is weird. I guess it’s actually a fluff piece of a regional supplement. But it’s done in a style more reminiscent of the Ready Ref Sheets with very little fluff and a lot of intrigues. It’s a section of land 18 miles across with a lot of intrigues, major and minor. And there’s a sentence or two for each little thing going on. And almost nothing else is present. There’s none of this “Gondorians wear purple scarves on Moonday” kind of shit. Padding is almost nonexistent. And there is a WHOLE lot of The miners are skimming off the top, the silversmith is cutting the silver with copper, the miners hate their rations and are eager to trade, a think b are pagan heretics, Kent leads the brigands, Kent hates the brigands and wants out, and about a bajillion things more.
I don’t know if I can adequate describe an overview. We’ve got a town, with a bridge in it being the only way to safely cross the nearby raging river that cuts the region in two. We’ve got some miners in the hills. Ghosts are popping up in their mines. There’s a village, full of pagans, who want to build a bridge. Financing in a somewhat complex land deal with some corrupt mine territory players., smelters, etc. Bandits in the woods robbing individuals and running protection racks, factions within them, wildmen in the hills abducting people, a cult (which, frankly, seems benign, though they are of note, in comparison to the other shits) Rumors everywhere. Open-ended. It’s fucking JAM PACKED with shit going on, people wanting things and trusting the party over time, and just about everything else under the sun. This place feels ALIVE in the way that only petty self-interested people can make a place feel like. Recall I like to harp on the fact that people having interactions with other people, John Loves Mary who hate William, is the key to a good social environment? Well this fucking does that. Everyone has interests all over the place. I note, also, that the terrain brings a little to the table. Seven hexes, six around a central hex. We’ve got the river, with the one bridge in the main town, that serves as barrier straight across the hexes. And then also there’s a ridgeline cutting across them, with only two good paths down through the cliffside. Natural passes/chokepoints, full of ointrigues!
And then there’s … the content? For you see, all of those ideas are essentially just that, ideas.
Each hex is going to have a few locations in it, typically. This is a screengrab from one of those. Note how you are creating your own monster. This is the ONLY hex it’s appropriate for … so the designer should have just tossed in a creature. But, then, also, “gold coins.” Well that’s exciting. Chunk of amber is a little better, with both amber and chunk being decent word choices, but there’s really no specificity to anything her. And everything is going to be like that. Just an idea.
Those four dungeons it lauds in the marketing? That’s one of them. You like? It’s certainly something, but not what I cwould call a dungeon. The concept of a dungeon, maybe. And all of the content in this adventure is going to be like, the concept of an idea. “gold coins.” “Copper Caves.”
As an outline this is great. That kind of short-hand content dense (or, at least the potential for being content dense …) information that Ready Ref killed it with. Or, even, that the Wilderlands did well. Yu can get glimpses here.But, it just doesn’t do anything ever. It doesn’t go anywhere. It’s concepts and ideas. I’m not even sure it would quality as an outline. Maybe? Which is why I’m going to slap this down as closer to a fluff region guide than a sandbox or hexcrawl or adventure. It’s ALMOST those things, but its just lacking in so much. I suspect you could kind of run it on the fly and fill in as you go, riffing on things. But it seems like such a shallow experience.
I will note one of the better bandit encounters I’ve seen is in this, for all of my bitching about specificity. Dude in the bar might try and recruit the party. He’s got a good thing, a protection kind of thing. Noice!Dude hangs in the parties bar, they see him and interact with him. Befriend each other. Several sessions He drops a hint that he can make them some cash, and they find out that their bud is actually the local bandit informant in the bar. That would be great! SO, in at least one case, the writing inspired me. But, also, I’m looking for just a little bit more in the way of specificty than this brings.
This is $1 at DriveThru. The preview is eight pages and, as long as you understand that what you’re looking at is all you’re getting, then it does a good job of showing you what to expect. Just don’t expect more elaboration on anything you see.