By Andrea Tupac Mollica
Hellwinter Forge of Wonders
OSE
Levels 4-6
The wizard Azarhorn has hired you to escort him to the Cenotaph of the Forlorn God, where a fabulous treasure awaits you. You heard something about the sinister fame surrounding the place, but the wizard promised you a good reward and all the riches you can plunder: enough to dismiss all doubts and fears. You just arrived at the village of Greyven, nothing more than a bunch of stone houses a few miles away from your final destination. You have the time to supply; then you’ll have to leave for the Cenotaph and the perils awaiting you inside.
This forty page adventure uses about sixteen pages to describe about seventeen rooms in a dungeon/prison. Rooms are one trick challenge rooms, with generic tropes done generically and an uninspiring, but short, writing style. At least there’s that.
First, the good. The rooms descriptions are relatively terse. There is a decent amount of DM text for each room, but, also, for something like this I think it could be considered terse. We’re no longer in the days of just noting pit traps on the map, so a short paragraph about one seems to be the standard. And, the paragraphs are focused on the effects of the rooms in a kind of bullet point style, once major thing per point, so, it doesn’t seem like the text, either DM text or room read aloud, is too burdensome. This, alone, means that I don’t hate this adventure. Also, the adventure starts with you passing through a little village and there’s a body hanging from a gallows in the middle of the village square. Groovy! That’s a fun bit of description! It’s got some game effect, cutting off it’s pinkies to use to open doors per some folklore, bt, still, it’s a nice touch anyway. That’s exactly the kind of thing you might put in to set the mood for a disaster to follow or some such. There’s one more nice little bit, and it’s in the village also. The villagers have a rumor/legend about The Hill Horror that wander the hills. That’s what they call it, The Hill Horror. That’s the way legends and rumors work! Name the thing. The troll under the bridge should be Ol Man Hickory. The bandits should be Fat Mamma Cass’ Boys. I love it! Oh, one more bit of finery in this adventure: at one point in the wilderness the party gets a better die roll if they have a ranger “or a stray dog is with them.” That’s some OSR D&D playing right there! Got a dog? It’s gonna help you out. A free-wheeling kind of play, in which mechanics are not tied, via the books, to every little thing but circumstances make a difference. Make the case why you don’t need to roll the dice! Get a dog. Have a DM that thinks about what is going on rather than just looking up rules!
Which is not at all to say that I think this is a good adventure. It is, at most, an adventure that does not offend too much. I did find myself giving withering sigh after withering sigh, Sideshow Bob style.
First, we’ve got an escort mission. You’re escorting Mr Wizzo in to the dungeon. How fun. Then, of course, Mr Wizzo doesn’t help you at all during the adventure. What fun. “He considers it a test to see if he chose the right people to escort him in to the dungeon.” What fun. And then in the last room of the dungeon he turns on you to kill you. What fun. Never say that one coming. You know why adventurers don’t have families and loved ones? Because the shitty DM trauma is real. Anyway, go ahead, take your time, explore the dungeon. But …”After one month, all the Forlorn God dungeon’s perils reset, and all the creatures revive with full HP” What fun. I just can’t fucking stand of that shit. Why are we even playing D&D? It’s all fucking bad. It takes the agency out of the players hands. Just watch a fucking movie or roll one die as a party and have the DM narrate what happens for the next four hours. loathe Loathe LOATHE.
The map is an uninteresting affair, with no real thought behind it. The read-aloud can be column length in some places, and terse in others. But t also is in an annoying fucking font that is hard to read. It’s beyond me why people still do this. DId no one tell you this? That, as the DM, it was hard to read the fucking font? No? Because you didn’t give it to someone to run?
And the room descriptions. Ug. Some of them are short and terse. “NARROW AND UNEVEN STEPS DESCEND INTO THE DARK BELLY OF THE HILL, FROM WHICH A FETID AND STALE AIR EXUDES.” I’m down for some fetid and stale air exuding from the dungeon. But when we also get shit like “THIS COLD ROOM IS BARE EXCEPT FOR THE REALISTIC STATUES OF six war mastiffs. AN UNKNOWN HAND PORTRAYED THE BEASTS IN VARIOUS POSITIONS.” An unknown hand? Really? It’s all in that weird narrator style, or stage direction style, maybe. “A ghostly figure COVERED IN A RAGGED BLACK ROBE SITS IN FRONT OF A TABLE WITH eleven mouse skulls. WITH A BOOMING, EERIE VOICE, THE FIGURE INTRODUCES ITSELF AS THE Skullmaster AND INVITES THE CHARACTERS TO CHALLENGE IT TO A GAME OF INTELLIGENCE AND STRATEGY” What the fuck is that about? Abstracted? Generalized? I have no words to even describe that writing style and its blunder.
Interactivity is simplistic. Basically, in each room you face a challenge. Maybe a pit trap or something. And you have to collect all of the keys and use them to open various doors, etc. In most rooms you have to be quiet or The Jailer shows up. It’s not clear to me how he gets from level one of the dungeon to level two, since the entrance is under a lake you have to drain. But, anyway, he shows up if you’re not quiet. We get “challenges” like “, the doors magically close, and all the lights, including the magical ones, snuff out” and then the ink demon attacks. Of course. Fucking doors slamming and your lights going out. Lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame. Backstory that doesn’t make a difference in the adventure. The Jailer was the former blah blah blah” but, of course, doesn’t mean anything since he can’t remember anything and even if he did it wouldn’t impact the adventure you’re on.
Uninteresting rooms. Generic tropes done generically. Plot points worthy of the worst 5e dreck. That all detracts from the better parts of the adventure, which are few and far between. And yet I don’t hate this. At least the rooms are short. I’d drink myself to oblivious if I had to run this, but I could run it.
This is $3 at DriveThru. There’s no real preview. There is a sample of one dungeon page but you can’t really read it. Sadz 🙁
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/494628/raiders-of-the-forlorn-god?1892600