By Lixu
Lixuni Gaming
OSE
Levels 3-5
An Adventure module for old-school essentials, uncover the mystery of an ancient celestial civilization an its ruins, involving yourself in the events taking place on an apparently frontier region, slaying evil monsters, fighting bandits and chaotic cultists and eventually reaching a floating ancient dungeon!
This 29 page adventure features a little region and mini-sandbox that culminates in exploring a 31 room floating fortress full of robots. It’s an interesting beast, needing a WHOLE lot more evocative writing, but it has its heart in the right place … if only it knew how to do things other than stab.
I know how this is going to sound, but … Cult of the Reptile God vibes from this one. No, not the town conspiracy. And not really the reptile gods lair. I don’t know. It’s a combination of the sandboxy nature and the tend of minimalism in the writing. Also, I said a vibe, I didn’t say it was worth it.
You’re in this town and there’s this dude missing, an herbalist. The inn owner hates him. Her sister, the general store chick, got ghosted by him when he disappeared. His apprentice has a gig for you … clear out the bandits by the lake? He’s double crossing them, farming psychedelics out there. There’s a few other threads also; the local nobles, fallen from the grace of the capitol, protecting the roads and hunting the mutant monsters that are roaming around to protect the lands … and their income. You can fuck around town a bit, fuck with the bandits and learn about the double-cross, find the dudes lake house … wth him dead in it, and explore a cult shrine of cannibals natives. And then transport up to the sky fortress … all while potentially dodging some weird weather in the area.
It’s not the best sandbox ever written, but the designer is making an effort to have several things going on in the region and around town … and they all kind of lead to the same place, eventually. This is good; you’ve got a main thing and you’re working in some other things, either subplots of the main thing or other happenings in the area, back to what the core of the adventure is meant to be. I’m down with that.
There’s also a hint of realism in this. If you fuck around too long on one of the subplots then it could be that the son of the local lord, a level six fighter, eventually shows up to resolve the issue … with all that implies for both the party and the region. A random happening in town is that the price of something goes WAY up, because bandits have hit the supply wagon for it and now its super rare. Thats a pretty good cause/effect related to an adventure lead. And, then, the room descriptions are, if you squint, trying to bring it also. “Filled with skulls and rags from the warbands enemies” or mounds in the area, a hole in the ground marked by a flag, with a ladder in it leading down, to a room full of charms and candles … all burning green. Noice overall zone.
But it’s not a great overall zone. The first half of the booklet is devoted to background, the town, and other places that are less than adventureful. That leaves us maybe eight pages for the bandit lair, the lakeside cottage, the native shrine, and the sky fortress. Not exactly fully realized environments are possible with those page counts, eh?
And that’s true. The room descriptions, the descriptive part, is quite terse. It’s not exactly Just The Facts, but it cuts close: “The room consists of only one stone bed carved into the wall, which depicts a military battle with what appear to be dragons and flying machines” That entrance room is “the entrance lies around a series of mounds, a flag pole standing at a hole to go down a ladder, 30’ deep. Once down, the room is filled with charms and candles, all made with a special wax that makes the flames have a green coloring.” and is by far one of more fully realized ones. A couple of rooms have pits/holes full of poisonous snakes. A little smell in the room above would have been nice? It’s just SO minimal. Matter of fact.
The treasure, for example. These almost always run to “Treasure room: This room is filled with 6 pieces of jewelry (4 x 1,000 gp & 2 x 1,100 gp)” That is the descriptions of the treasure room. And several are like this. You might get a +1 sword here and there, but “4x1000gp jewelry” is pretty much the height of this.
It’s like, in all places, it is ALMOST there, but pulls back just a little. The Lack of treasure detail beyond the barest minimum. The lack of an evocative environment beyond the barest minimum. The lack of interactivity (beyond stabbing) except for the barest minimum required in a kind of sandbox. The hooks are not fleshed out at all (and presented in a random manner, as in a random roll, not a good use of randomness …)
And then there’s the editing. I suspect that there might be an EASL thing here, so I’m not going to go down the path of the word order and so on … it’s good enough. But there are some mistake mistakes. The local lord … that level six fighter son? It says they are a daughter. And it’s implied in other ways, like with the name. I know A Boy Named Sue is a thing, but it really is more than a bit confusing. I guess it doesn’t matter, but, also, I’m bewildered at multiple times in this over multiple issues.
This isn’t a terrible adventure. It’s more than a little straightforward for me, with very little in the way of local color or interactivity beyond some basic stabbing. It isn’t realized in the manner of a good sandbox, or even have components that are realized, like the village in Reptile God. Some better flavour, interactivity, and maybe a touch more going on … a more complex web, and this would be great.
This is $5 at DriveThru. Alas, there is no preview, and thus no ability to make a purchasing decision based on that preview before you actually buy it. Shame.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/514767/appendix-l-3-fane-of-the-laruleans?1892600
Sounds like someone has promise.