By Elln the Witch
Self Published
OSR
Levels 1-3
The Abyssea Cave is known to be an isolated cavern near the sea, seemingly devoid of activity. Its remote location, far from major cities, means it rarely sees visitors. However, significant events transpired here before the adventure begins: a boat en route to these lands was invaded by a group of half-man, half-fish monsters known as the “Werish.” During the invasion, they plundered the ship’s treasures and kidnapped two individuals as part of a deal made with a cultist leader. Following these events, the Werish found a secure location to establish their base—the Abyssea Cave. In the aftermath, rumors began to circulate in the nearest village about the missing boat that typically brought new arrivals to the land. Locals whispered that what was once a cave where herbalists gathered plants was now overrun with monsters.
This thirteen page adventure uses two pages to describe eight rooms. It uses a conversational tone to describe things on the map. Straightforward rooms with little description in which you stab things.
First, yes, I can be bad, my keyboard dropping letters and me not catching it. But, yes, the designers name is Elln the Witch. So I didn’t fuck that up.
This is nothing good about this adventure. Well, no, that’s not true. There’s this amulet that give you like a +4 to your fire saves. But, also, you are always drenched in water, like you just came out of a pool. That’s sweet. That’s the kind of fun D&D that I like to see in adventures now and then. But, otherwise, there is nothing good here. It’s not BAD bad. It’s clear that the designer is literate and had an idea, they just don’t know how to write an adventure. At all. This is not a backhanded compliment, there are plenty of adventures in which the designer is not literate or does things like use color coding like it’s the skittles rainbow or something. This adventure is not those adventures.
The adventure starts with you being hired to go to a remote cave by a herbalist to collect a couple of herbs with “good healing properties.” I’m not a fan of these sorts of “you get hired” hooks. A pretext is a pretext, after all, but, also, I tend to find it an omen. It means a certain way of looking at an adventure. And, for better or worse, OSR means not only a retro toolset but a mindset and vibe as well. The Hero to Superhero worldsaver arc is not just 180 degrees, it’s a different reality. A Boot Hill adventure sets in the 94th century should probably disclose that. This is a VERY simple adventure with a small plot hook where you are hired and a distinctly lack of treasure … and we know that no treasure means no XP. Which means the designer has left out a very serious thing … which would make me think that the designer isn’t in to the OSR thing at all.
We should talk, also, about the conversational style of the text used. “The first thing they notice …” or “If the players walk in to this room …” This sort of writing style is the only one used in the adventure. And while I can forgive the occasional Player/Character thing, I think it does show a certain sloppiness in the writing. A sloppiness ground home, again and again by this conversation padding in the adventure. IF the players walk in to the room THEN they see … that is all padding. I don’t know, maybe, 30%, realistically, is padding in this adventure? And the rets if not exactly rocket science. You walk down a 10×20 corridor and need to search it to find the weird thing sticking out in int. Or you try to sneak by monsters … who are alert and you only have 5’ on either side of them to make your way around. Elln, I’m not sure that’s a sneaking situation. This begins at the beginning with “Just upon entering, they can see that this cave might be empty because the entrance was blocked by stones and covered with webs. They notice three passages at the entrance of the cave” Well, even if we remove the padding (and map description), we place the covered by stone and webs things first. And, if the entrance is blocked off, how did the hostages (there are hostages in this) get in to the caves? It’s a jumble of text, with little thought as to how the text will actually be used at the table or what it implies.
There are no real evocative descriptions, or many descriptions at all for that matter. The interactivity here is stabbing monsters, with a bit of Free The Hostages. Otherwise this is just a half page adventure padded out to thirteen pages.
This is $2 at DriveThru. The preview is two pages. It shows you nothing of the adventure encounters … the purpose of the preview is to help the buyer make a determination if they want to buy the adventure … and thus you need to show them something of what to expect, not the intro pages.
Yeesh, yet another in a string of poor adventures. November is a bleak month.