By Greg Daley
Tarichan Games
1e
Level 1
There’s work a-plenty at the edge of civilised lands. Can young adventurers help a local community and forge new ties? A village at the far end of civilisation offers our novice adventurers employment, and the chance of advancement. Do the scrub and plains beyond The March offer discovery, daring, or death? A shady offer of work at the hidden gnomish settlement of Opus beckons the adventurers into the wild. Can they truly fathom the danger that awaits?
This 41 page regional sandbox presents one of the more grounded and fun versions of a local starting setting. Each site has something short, a line or so, that is also memorable without being over the top. It is also clear that the designer has no idea how to present and format information. But interactivity, relatability, and specificity? It brings it without going over the top.
Man, this thing is great! There’s no wormhole monsters or saving the world or anything exotic or set piecey. I’m not even sure there’s a whole lot of treasure in it. But what there is a game world full of shit that you are just BEAMING to run as a DM. Glee, just glee. Or, maybe, scene after scene that builds to a great finale.
You’ve got the innkeepers perhaps making some inquiries, on the side, for “Thieves’ Guild financier Clarence Stoddard, staying upstairs.” There’s something interesting, the thieves guild financier. In a regional encounter, the party comes across a farm with a fence around it and a horse grazing in it’s pasture. You watch three men take down a fence railing and approach a horse. Hmmm. Then a middle aged woman comes running out of the house with a sword … horse thieves! Horse thieves in D&D?! Of course! Everything is taxed, labour allotted for, and someone out to steal it. I’m an idiot for not thinking of this. It’s obvious. And the three dudes on the road taking down a fence railing. The party is just going to stand there and watch. They won’t know. And almost certainly be just as stunned as I was. And stunning me in a D&D adventure is a rare event. Those witches that were harpies got me in that one adventure. And the horse thieves in this one got me. But it’s so natural. The designer TOLD you what was going on. It’s so natural. In one place you might go out with the fishermen to catch some fish. You ever go out fishing with the dregs of the earth? “Those who go out with the fishers may get into arguments with them. If there is an argument, the fisherfolk will turn violent.” This is fucking great! A surly fisherman, just drinking enough to be pissy, breaking the parties balls, starting fights, hazing them. OF COURSE the fishermen are a rough crowd. Duh! I love it! They may also make some conversation with the party. Asking about their lives, where they come from. “If they believe the no-one knows they are here, they may attempt to drown them.” Gah! “Yes, I am travelling along and no I have no friends or family at all and no one knows I am here and I am traveling with a large amount of expensive gear. Why do you ask?” This fucking shit is wonderful. A herald in the inn taproom announces news in a great way. It FEELS like a dude stopping by to spread the news.
There’s this whole element of some druids causing problems, with a lot of little quests and tasks that the party can perform, some that track with the thieves (pirates and shipwreckers!) and some with the druids and some isolated. Things end up with the party returning to the town/village and seeing dead bodies and animals attacking people! Packs of dogs! Wolves! More! Fucking Earth First druids man. D&D: if you have any alignment then you’re the problem. Anyway, shit kicks off in to high gear. At least in terms of the shit I love in an adventure. You gonna maybe meet three fellow adventurers kicking the shit out of some wolves. You geta bit about them and then “These adventurers are slick, amoral, and spend freely on alcohol and meals. If a player character hangs out with them, they may easily leave them with the bill for entertainment. Ser Christan is particularly well connected, coming from a prestigious family in Origee (the nearby civilised province)” You know the type. And here they are! How about the bar?! “Barkeeper Jasque and her husband cook Ferdo have closed up the inn, and even blocked the fireplace. Several villagers wait in the bar, drinking from boredom or tension.” Every apocalyptic movie ever has sullen people holding up in the bar. And here it is! “Nalia will crush on an adventurer who helps save them, but her affluent family will overrule and engage her to a titled, or landed bachelor” Fun! Hey man, the village school has kids hanging out of the windows hooting and jeering. Fuck those brats! How about the town well, eh? “The well of ancient stone has all four side basins full, but no-one is around, and this area is still. A sound rises from the well, like the skirl of bagpipes. A nightmarish, heaving, hairy carpet washes toward the characters.” Fuck yeah! Classic! These fucking things are short. Almost all of the good shit in this is. It reminds me of the very best of the hex encounters in Wilderlands. “Here is something greatI can build and riff off of. I can’t wait!” Except I think maybe this does that better than WIlderlands. The scale is smaller, and thus you can have perhaps some more interconnections and so on, which perhaps helps. It doesn’t drone on. It doesn’t skip the mechanics. It fucking hits hard and moves the fuck on, letting you riff. And it’s fucking great at it!
What it does NOT do well is almost everything related to actually publishing an adventure. Dude knows what makes a D&D adventure good and almost nothing at all about how to format one. It does have two column. But the words and tables spread across pages and columns in weird ways (Guy Fullerton has a series of articles about the most basic of layout issues: http://www.chaotichenchmen.com/2012/05/publishing-tips-introduction-and-order.html) There’s a kind of lack of summary of the situations going on, at least in a way that makes sense and a potential DM could follow. The formatting is such that the encounter areas are hard to pick out and had to tell when a new one begins. Following threads from A to B to C could be reinforced a bit. The chaos of the village attack needs a little summary of MAJOR things that could attract attention.
It’s fucking great is what the fuck it is. But, also, it has those ease of use/formatting and layout issues. I do fucking love the shit going on here. It’s perfect as a starting region. Get to know people. Shit goes down. This iis going to take some study and a highlighter, but it is packed with good stuff. If dude can figure out the mechanics of layout, editing, and publishing then their next could be really good.
This is $3.36 at DriveThru. The preview is three pages and shows you nothing with which you can make an informed purchasing decision with. Shitty preview.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/549622/em1-eastern-spark-old-school?1892600