Shadow of the Devourer

By Gaz Bowerbank
Self Published
5e
Level 4

Stop The Ritual, Save The World! An evil cult holds sway over the settlement of Temple’s Shadow. Rumours abound of a nefarious ritual to summon a demon from the abyss to consume all the Devourer Cult’s enemies! Who will put a stop to the desperate plans of the deranged cult and ensure chaos isn’t unleashed on an unsuspecting world?

This 36 page adventure, a review request, uses about 25 pages to describe a Dark Tower like environment of a small town and three ruined/cultist temple pyramids. The designer has a witty writing style and a talent for situations, but its writing is way Way WAY too long, making it unusable. And the map choice sucks shit.

I’m working through my Requested list, so, if you requested something expect to see it soon-ish. 

The designer, Gaz, seems to run a long-standing podcast. I’m sure his listeners loved this adventure. I, however, will never run it.

The basic set up is a desert town, most of which is controlled by a cult. There are three nearby pyramid ruins. Each has a different cult faction in it. Yeah, the cults kind of at war with itself, as the leader tries to summon a demon. It’s not totally unlike the general setup from Dark Tower. It’s a classic concept for a reason, giving someone a lot of room to work through a lot a different things going on.

Gaz has a breezy style that interjects sly humor in to the writing. It’s not humor, per se. Humor in adventures sucks shit. No, Gaz interjects some situations which are darkly comedic, general in a manner that pushes towards farcical, but never reaching it. An NPC, for example, in the market yells about weapons for sale, only one careful owner. Some of which are covered in blood. He doesn’t linger on it too long, or push it too far. They are almost asides to the DM at times, and generally all advance the game, or at gameable content, in some way. He’s not taking himself too seriously, but also isn’t writing jokes. It’s a style, pushing closer to farce than not, that I can really get behind and makes reading the adventure breezy. 

He’s also got a certain talent for creating situations. You meet a small crying child in one pyramid room, the abandoned pyramid. They sit outside a charnel house room, full of bodies, the chil noting its parents are inside. Everything up to this point leads to this being believable … in spite of the child actually being a succubus. Or, a group of prisoners and a small enemy cul t faction hold up in a section of the dungeon … starving, making raids, the cultiss on edge about the prisoners .. and the wail of a nearby banshee keeping everyone on edge. There’s shit going on, a decent amount. It’s relatable. And relatable content is GOOD content, making it easy for the DM to riff on and the players to accept. I wish I knew, better, what makes content relatable. It really is a differentiator. He also interjects good advice at times, like having all of the NPC’s appearing to be short on time, to give the illusions things are going on. THings are happening, to put a time pressure feeling onthe PC’s. 

He’s making an attempt with the format, integrating small sections of bullet text, a cross-reference table for cult faction beliefs, mini-maps, and icons to denote which rooms belong to which faction. NPC’s get some brief describer words (sweaty human, obnoxious, barely clothed) to help the DM run them. The NPC describer words, in particular, work very well. I understand what he is trying to do with the faction icons, but I don’t think it really helps at all in a meaningful way. And the bullets … well …

It’s also an unrunable adventure. By which I mean it’s such a pain in the ass to run that I am never going to run it. I’ll select any of a hundred others before this one, simpler to run and just as good in design. And that’s the game a designer is playing today, folks. You’re competing against every adventure ever published, ever. And while I’m fan of supporting new designers over the older content, there’s STILL enough new stuff that hits all the marks to recommend it over this. Adventures need to be GOOD to make it to the table. Evocative writing. Interactivity. And easy to run at the table. And this is not that.

First, let us discuss the map. Each room entry has a little mini-map next to it, showing the room in questions, highlighted. That is your map. That’s it. Oh, there’s a larger map in the appendix, but it’s more a players map, unnumbered. Of course, the mini-maps are unnumbered also. ONLY THE ROOM SHADING INDICATES THIS IS THE CORRECT ROOM. So, to find a room you have to thumb through things to find the correct room, by its shaded entry. It’s fucking nuts. Why the fuck wouldnt you just number the damn things like a normal keyed dungeon? Numbereing works fucking fantasticfor exploration adventures … which this is. Is the room they are going to before or after this current room in the adventure text? Who the fuck knows, thumb both directions until you find the shaded room. It’s fucking crazy. There is no way in fucking hell I’m gdoing that, which means I get to number the rooms with I want to run this. Or, buy something else that does it for me …

And Gaz’s writing is way WAY too long. Remember those bullet points I mentioned, for rooms? Well that’s not all. First you have to slog through four or so LONG paragraphs of text. And then you get some bullet points summarizing what you just read. But, not enough to run the room with. It’s fucking nuts, again. Four paragraphs?! You want me to read that and refer to it while I’m running this room? No way! And it’s almost all padding.

Here’s a room called Preparation Chamber: 

“Here the important members of the cult prepare for high ceremony, none more supreme than this one. Hanging on hooks are robes and accoutrements of ritual. Shining slivered bowls hold scented oil and water; incense and spices sit in colourful powder cones next to delicate burners; parchments and books languish on carved walnut lecterns.

From the archway to the west can be heard the chanting of Snevets Zab, as he works to summon The Decapitator to aid him. Here also, are the most loyal and fanatical of the high priest’s followers, attending to the ritual and representing a guard for their leader (see Cultist Mob in the Appendix). They fight to the death, assured a glorious reincarnation awaits them, should they perish”

The first sentence is complete padding. The first in the second paragraph over reveals. And the second paragraph either over reveals or is confusing. Are they in this room of the next room? And can’t I have a page number for that cult mob, to help me find it? And isn’t most of the text an aside, not really pertaining to the running of the adventure? As I said, I can get behind an occasional aside, but too much, with too much padding, all combine to make a text that it hard as fuck to scan. And text that is hard to scan is hard to run. You gotta read through everything and hold it in your head, which is impossible. 

Your encounter locations need to be focused. You’ve got to put some effort in to them. And by SOME I mean A LOT. First, you gotta come up with an idea. Then write it. And you need to edit it. HARD. Make sure it is evocative. Is important stuff up high. Have you pruned it back to just whats needed, but not destroyed the evocative nature of the room? Have you integrated it in to the other rooms? Edit Edit Edit. Sweat over it. This is what adventure writing is. This is the hard part. And, this is what will separate your adventure. It will make it good. It will turn it from something that is forgotten shoverware in to something that people will talk about. It’s not that appendix shit. It’s not all that background garbage you put in up front. It’s not how well you balanced the thing or adhered to the rules. It’s the fucking encounter descriptions. Alive. Interactive. And easy to scan/run at the table. Yeah, sure, you can do a four paragraph room entry. Room after room. And you can make it good. And easy to run at the table. But you are still gonna work it. You’re gonna work it as hard as a terser entry. The players just walked in to the fucking room. I glance down at the page for one second. ONE SECOND. Count one one thousand. By then I need enough to begin to run the room. There are a lot of ways to get there. But that’s what your selected format, your editing, has to be able to do. And it better be an evocative room description also. I want something that comes alive in my mind. 

You know what? This adventure actually has a tl/dr section. If you have to put in a tl/dr then you should know you’ve got a problem. Yeah, ok, I support adventure summaries. But a tl./dr?

“Whatever use this room once had” Ug! Padding! The death of adventure writing.

This is $5 at DriveThru. The preview is twelve pages, and the ;ast three show you some rooms. So, good preview.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/382966/Shadow-of-the-Devourer?1892600