In the deep woods just outside of Middleport, there stands the Full Moon Tower. In the days when the tower was new, children from Middleport began to disappear in the dead of night. The villagers tracked the missing children to the tower, but not a single one was to be found inside. Only a beautiful woman, a witch, who would not tell where the children had gone. Generations have passed since the children left. Still, the villagers do not go near the tower, for none have entered it and returned.
This 26 page adventure features a six level tower with six rooms, one per floor. It has a nice turn of phrase here and there but overall comes off as longwinded, mostly due to the embedded plot and conversational style of the text.
The basic idea here is that there’s this tower in the woods and bandits in it that sometimes raid the town to capture people and goods. Inside is the evil presence of a witch who takes over bodies and makes them her thralls, having several of them. A cage of prisoners at the top of the tower, her evil coven in the basement, and the bandits kept in check by hostages the incorporeal witch has taken.
The village, which several pages are spent on, doesn’t really get much to distinguish it. It’s both the first sign of good things from the adventure and of the bad that plagues this one. The village takes about two pages, of which is ¾ rumors, but there’s still nothing much of note for all that content. A lot of content that tells us nothing interesting … with a couple of exceptions. The innkeeper had his son taken and he’s sharpening his sword. Or, to quote directly “Gert spends all day sharpening an old iron sword, wishing the bandits would show up again. He mumbles that it will be worth it them doing it, if he can catch them doing it.” Mumbling to himself, on the edge of loosing it, sharpening that old sword obsessively. Not really paying attention to anyone. I can run that guy. There’s another point of two thats interesting as well. The locals call the tower Full Moon Tower, or The Dark Spire, or The Witches Castle. Nice having different names, a real local color sort of thing. That’s the sort of specificity that can make some place seem alive and real, both the tower and the village.
Those little specifics are quite interesting. AT one point we learn that the witch cut out her own tongue to become a witch. Nice! Good detail! It’s worthless, in the adventure, since she’s incorporal and exists only as a vague glowing purple light in peoples eyes that she takes over. This is quite sad. Good detail, but worthless to the adventure. There’s also a nice little art piece of a mosaic on the first floor of the tower.
After this things are just downhill.
The door disappears after you go inside. *sigh* There’s plot embedded in the entire thing, making the rooms long and involved. The style of text is conversations, with a lot of “If the party open the door then they see” sorts of text. The elements with the witch manifesting as a glowing purple in her thralls eyes is lost in all of this. Instead of doubling down on the theming it goes all over the place, with the nicer bits getting lost.
And then some of the descriptions are just plain confusing. One thrall, a person I guess, has a tail that it shots spines from? I don’t get that all. And a DIE! Situation where the first party member probably dies in one room. The door slams shut after they go in and then the DM is instructed to just give the sounds of fighting and to kill the PC. That’s uncool. At one point you find a glass eye that doesn’t really do much but detect evil. The final battle in the basement notes “if the witch sees the party throwing the eye around she will cause it to burst in mid air the next time they do.” Why would they be throwing the eye around? It doesn’t make sense.
There’s supposed to be this embedded plot with a bandit leader led captive, his brother talking to the party (after they’ve killed all his men, I assume, knowing how most things go.)
It’s just words words words, conversational without the great specific highs it reaches in place. The plot is not integrated well, not thought out, and just feels tacked on and not well developed.
That’s a shame. You can see where the designer wanted to go. Local “haunted” tower. Bandits forced to kidnap people. Thralls, eyes glowing purple. A bandit desperate to save his brother. A strong moonlight element to power magic, etc. But it just doesn’t come off, at all.
This is $3 at DriveThru. The preview doesn’t work. Neither does the print version of the downloaded files. 🙁
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/352453/Trespassers-of-the-Full-Moon-Tower
I feel there is mileage to be had out of If/Then monster design (If the the golden goose goes missing, then the giants will begin hunting the party) if it can be formatted properly. That’s interactivity, cause-and-effect that makes adventures feel alive.
Shame that it sounds like this adventure didn’t quite hit that note.
Nothing says epic fantasy town name, like “Middleport”. Does this adventure take place on present day Earth? I think I’ll hop in my car and drive over to Middleport for some lunch. Okay, lol
So tired of the mundanity of level 1-2 adventures. Characters are limited so players are limited so adventure design is limited. A million level 1-2 adventures, maybe 4 for level 7. Sorry for the rant. (Steps down from soapbox).
I wish I could upvote this a hundred times.
ghost booba
AT one point we learn that the witch cut out her own tongue to become a witch. Nice! Good detail! It’s worthless, in the adventure, since she’s incorporal and exists only as a vague glowing purple light in peoples eyes that she takes over.
Having seen the Tongue of St Anthony in a reliquary in the basilica in Padua, I have to opine that the real lost opportunity is not having the witch’s tongue available as some weird treasure.
PLEASE review this one Bryce…
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/353811/Tomb-of-the-Twilight-Queen-5E?src=fp_u5
I accidentally found this review post from 2021 just now. Sorry for the necromancy. I didn’t realize anyone had written any reviews of it. I’m one of the authors. I’m actually familiar with your blog, or. have seen it posted around.
Thank you for reading, and writing up your thoughts. I’m sad it didn’t land with you. This was an impromptu adventure my friend ran, and then I wrote-up during the COVID lockdowns. It was our first (and last) attempt at it, so I appreciate the honest feedback where things went wrong, or in the few places where they went right.
And thanks for letting me know the preview and print version don’t work. They work on my printer, but I’ll figure out what is up.
I’m glad you like Gert. I also feel a bond.
In the original game universe, the witch’s tongue being cut out made a lot more playable sense, which is why we shortly after put out [the writeup of the witch goddess](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/362355/druna-the-silver-goddess-of-the-moon) (it’s free!)
But I’ll also admit, yeah, I was writing for the DM reading the module. I read more adventures than I play, and I *like* reading them, and I like when I’m reading them to see that there *is* an explanation for the way things are, even if it isn’t something the players will interact with directly. It kind of sounds like you liked the prose, even if it you didn’t like that I described so much; so maybe I succeeded there.
The thrall upstairs, yes, transforms into a monster of arcane energy. This is the read-aloud text:
> The imprisoned villagers cover their eyes and turn away. Looking around the room, your eyes fall on an ancient corpse, little more than a skeleton, bones covered in a thin gauze of flesh, propped in a rotten wood chair. As soon as the light of your torch touches it, its slack jaws open and a violet fire roars inside its mouth. An aperture over the stair shaft slides from the floor, slamming shut, blocking all escape. The skeletal skull detaches from the corpse, a serpentine tail of violet fire trailing behind it.
and then
> Combat: The arcane horror flies lithely through the room like a water snake. … Though physically resistant (1/2-die dmg), it takes normal damage from pure iron weapons (not steel).
There was a picture of it, but it got cut (it’s in the patron writeup I linked), but I think the word picture is there. The violet glow shows up here, too. The theme color is noticeable to players, who pick up it means something.
Here’s what the module really gives, which I do want to defend:
The combat sequences. The actual focus is the final combat with the witch. And ironically (given the tac of your review), this is a part that you’d only get from playing and not reading the module. The witch is *hard*. There is an entire page describing her tactics in multiple stages.
(And why would players toss the eye around? Because we did. If you pass it around, more people can hit witches per round)
The arcane horror, also, is a fairly detailed and thought out mini-boss fight. It’s telegraphed and skippable, but offers a significant challenge. It is specifically vulnerable to the weapon Gert has in his hands — payoff for bringing him.
After beating the witch, the violet eyes aspect becomes plot relevant:
> The tavern is in fact a cave, and is full of corpses. … There is a statue to the Silver Goddess against a far wall. Next to it is a dark orange potion (page 22). The eyes of the statue glow violet.
If players were paying attention, they know this is bad. If they weren’t, then they might think the voice from the statue is a different being that they need to help.====
The glass eye could have been a staff of dispel illusions. But it isn’t. It’s a glass eye. Unexplained, weird, and turns out to be very useful. I think that’s better design. It started as a weird idea that came into my head while writing the entrance, and became its own thing. There is more story behind it, but we never released anything else.
Anyway, thank you for providing space for my response, and I do actually appreciate you reading and writing out your thoughts on it.