By Gina Marie Funk
Witch Pleas Publishing
OSR/5e/DCC
Level 5
As the ashes of the last battle between Sydonia’s Sidereal Sailors and the Unseen Web settle, the Gods of the Pantheon stir within Mentius. And into this crucible of epic conflict, with the globe’s fate in the balance, come the player characters.
Holy Fuckballs!
This 57 page bat shit crazy adventure uses 55 pages to describe four levels, each with about seventeen rooms, in an “abandoned” power-center of the greco-roman gods. It’s laid out clearly and described well, but fuck all that shit. It is bat shit crazy from start to finish in the best way possible. This is a fucking adventure for level fives!
Look man, I’m gonna do my best here but I’m gonna fail.
There are factions here. This was/is a place of power for the greco-roman gods. Kind of an R&R spot. Being the greco-roman gods, there was a lot of backstabbing, jealousy, cheating, plotting and the like. The place kind of falls, in an epic way. At some point some aliens, who look like thri-kreen, show up on our world and are not secretly manipulating it for the ends of their galaxy-spanning powerful empire. A sorceress finds out, manages to not die, and is now plotting to toss them out. To do that she’s going to tap in to the power of the place, which is currently being limited by an artifact on the lowest of the four levels, along with her space-pirate minions. They’ve just finished a big battle which has broken the back of the alien dudes in the complex. “Wow, that’s a lot Bryce!” Fuck you man, I’m just getting started! She’s also got allies in the Blackfire goblins, who the aliens have started a rebellion in as a last desperate act. Also, they have a couple of spies in her inner circle, including a lover and a daughter. And then, of course, the gods have various feuds and plots going on. The party can get mixed up in ALL of this, leading to various outcomes, some of which might result in the party having power bases in the complex, as in Domain play bases, at the end. Before I got in all this the adventure noted fifteen to twelve sessions of play with the party potentially rising to nine. “Pfft!” I thought, “that’s bullshit.“ Then I got in to all of it. Fuck me man, this thing GOES HARD. (Spoilers: Mankind/Spiderkind left the gods behind for a reason; almost every outcome is better if the gods gets fucked over hard. Don’t trust a word they say. Or, do, just know they don’t give a fuck an will, in the end, fuck over mortals fuck shit over.) Oh, hey, check that, I mean the best outcome is prob just killing everyone in the place.
During my review process I go through the thing, copying and pasting examples of shit I see, good and bad. This is from the very first room, the entrance “Rusted iron gates, cyclopean in size, leading into a palatial wall. Flanked by stained, cracked statues of the 12 Gods of the Pantheon, in knee-high water. Stairs lead to the gates, submerged in up to 40’ of sea water. A cave octopus ambushes from a 80’ deep sinkhole at the foot of the stairs.” Cyclopean, ruster, palatial. Flanked, cracked. Great use of words to paint a picture. Not every room is like this, but more than enough of them are, in a terse format, to make the impact of room after room felt.
Further, looking at the overall encounter, this great water filled pit partially submerging the stairs you need to use, and the watch in the water lurking there, setting up a reimagined Moria scene. EVen the whole 80 foot deep thing, with a place for the creature to flee to when morale breaks and hiding his treasure in lair. Treasure? The Crown of King Hyperion and the Sunbeam Banded Mail. Good use of banded mail in greco-roman theming. Oh, also, that mail? “it depicts Helios bedding a woman on the breastplate.” yeah yeah, coins and shit also, but golden magic crown and sunbeam banded mail that sheds lght? Count me in!
Strong fantasy vibes here. Strong grec-roman vibes. And some of that weird technology shit. Space pirates in a space trireme floating off the ground. Blaster rifles. The spider aliens have armed the goblin rebels with blaster rifles. “12’ tall mantid with 8 spider-like limbs and an arachnid head with massive mandibles. Clad in iridescent high-tech armor, it wields 4 plasma swords.” I know this is a turn off for some of you, but, man, it rocks and I don’t think it goes too hard. Maybe a bit Thundarr, if you lean a little more fantasy. This is., by farm the wackiest thing “A stone-faced time traveler from 1980s America with a mane of dark hair, eyepatch and sleeveless shirt. Lover of Pele and Magic User with a lionness cub familiar, Spoon.” That one goes a little hard, but s by far the worst of it.
There is so much here to negotiate your way through, literally and figuratively. Sure, you can talk to some people. Other attack first and may take captives. In other areas we get to the figurative, with obstacles and scenes to pick your way through and find solutions, or those pseudo set-pieces, like the entrance octopus. Venus is trapped under the net of Hephaestus. Wanna talk with Jupiter and do something for him? Underwater sections. Circe. The Kraken. And man it all fits in well and doesn’t come across as just being tossed in out of nowhere.
If you can handle the techno influence of the space pirates then this one is a no fucking brainer. I lost count of how many mythic figures, and even gods, you could get to stabbin if circumstance or whim calls out to you. It mentions Thracia and Dark Tower in the marketing and those vibes are spot on.
I am SO fucking down! Complex mid level adventuring.
This is $16 at DriveThru. There’s no fucking preview! That’s a crime against humanity! Show a couple of rooms to us before we buy so we can know it’s a good fit!
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/578722/the-mouth-of-mentius-ose-pdf?1892600