Prisoners of the Crimson Crystal

By Roberto Marcarini
Old School Fox
OSE
Levels 2-3

The wedding of Baron Duncan was meant to be a day of celebration and joy for all his subjects, as well as for you, brave heroes, called to witness the event. During the ceremony, however, just before the fateful ‘Yes, I do,’ Xanaxarius, the bandit-sorcerer known throughout the surrounding lands, broke in with his horde of followers. You remember very little of what happened next: the cries of the almost newlyweds, the dark and arcane words of Xanaxarius, and the red flash that engulfed you and the other guests…

This forty page adventure uses about seventeen pages to describe about thirteen locations in a magic land inside of a red crystal. It’s got a conversational style, full of backstory and explanations, that are inappropriate for room descriptions, as well as a lack of specificity to bring places alive or situations to develop for interactivity. And thusly …

I don’t even know where to start with this. Room one I guess. “Among all the guards and heroes who came to the rescue of the two newlyweds, the characters were among the luckiest and appeared on the cliff that rises to the north of the magical river, which flows through the dreamlike crystal landscape” It continues. For almost half a page. That has told us almost nothing. I guess it says you can see a river? So, mabe a vista landscape descriptions, orienting the party? But, also, all that shit is on the map. And you know how I love a description that repeats obvious shit from a map. Otherwise, this is some kind of commentary. A very conversational tone in writing a room description. Unfocused, repeating information for, like, the nine hundredth time, about the red landscape and sky. And this thing is just FULL of that shit. Asides and commentary, explanations and backstory. Repeated information. There is actually very very little information present that could be of use to the DM running the game. 

Evocative text? I think not. “An old staircase carved into the rock of the cliff that descends to its base about forty feet below.” Yeah! I’m inspired! The next three sentences about the staircase do little more. How about “ A small grove nestled between the cliff and the nearby river.” How’s that? Cool? There is just SOOOOO much text here. The page count to encounter count would imply that, for sure. And yet there is almost nothing present that you could turn in to a game. The gnome couple, on the cliff, don’t really have a personality to interact with. Or a purpose other than telling the party to go south, I guess. The Crimson Toad! “As large as a medium-sized dog.” That’s your description. Great. Oh, wait, it does say, buried deep in the text, that maybe the party learned how to bypass the toad from information in room one. But, that’s in room four, not in room one. Room one doesn’t mention ANYTHING about this. Uh … we put the information where  we need it to use, not in a different room.

And yet the adventure goes on and on and on. The creatures and challenges here are expanded upon at great length. And yet they say very little about them. Nothing really evocative. Nothing really in the way of interacting interactivity. Sure, you can stab something. Yeah?

One of my favorites are some old rotting bags that say they “have become the home to some parasites and other horrid creatures.’ That’s your description. But that’s not a description. That’s some kind of meta overview. Why put this in? Why not just describe some giant grubs or water bugs or ticks of unusual size or something? Why the choice to NOT give a description but instead focus on the abstraction of the encounter? There’s no specificity here. And, in the end, you get attacked by four cockroaches. Yes describe the horrid parasites! But, no, that was not the choice chosen for me. We all need a savior to come our way.

There;s nothing really here. It wants to be a fairy tale land covered in a red tint glow from the crystal you’re trapped inside of. It comes off, though, as meta abstractions of encounters without real descriptions or interesting interactivity. A shadow of a shadow. 

This is $3 at DriveThru. The preview is seven pages. You get to see the first few encounters which should be enough to give you a feel for the writing style.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/498723/prisoners-of-the-crimson-crystal-eng-ita-version?1892600