By Gavin Norman, Yves Geens
Necrotic Gnome
OSE
Levels 4-6
The once-proud Abbey of St Clewyd the Refulgent has stood in ruins for a century, wracked with weird energies and haunted by wicked spirits. Several missions have sought to reclaim the abbey and quell the tides of Chaos. All have failed. What treasures lie untouched within, ripe for the picking? Can the mystery of the abbey’s ruination be unravelled and the forces of Chaos be vanquished?
This sixty page adventure describes a ruined abbey with about twenty locations above ground and thirty below ground in two major zones. It’s got a creepy vibe, with real consequences and rewards for a campaign while not apocalyptic. Creepy happenings create an interesting environment with just enough interactivity beyond undead killing to bring some extra life to it. While I’m generally a fan of the OSE style, it does show some weakness here, but, overall, this is a real adventuring locale and solid piece.
I reviewed the upper level of this awhile back, from Wormskin, but never hit the follow up issue so didn’t review the dungeon proper. It’s now out as a standalone product. Originally thought the upper ruins were a bit sparse, as a standalone adventure, but was a big fan of the spooky vibe. The vibe remains strong and the upper ruins serve as a good intro to the lower ruins below.
I am a fan of most of the hooks here. The first is essentially a treasure map “PCs come into possession of ancient Liturgic documents detailing the fate of the fabled crown of Prince Gaspar of Brackenwold, believed lost for 900 years..” That’s a great localization of a treasure map, with the notes providing a little more specificity. The second has the church getting the party to retrieve relics from the ruins and “ Successful PCs are appointed as leaders of a sect responsible for warding any retrieved artefacts. They are granted four followers (Level 1 clerics) and funds to construct a shrine in a settlement of their choosing.” At level four to six we can see how this plays in to the stronghold elements that should be popping up about then. This is a great appeal to the players egos, parades from the locals always go over well, and feeds, again, in to the power levels that the players characters should be approaching. (Similarly, the consequences section in the end of the adventure provides some nice impacts to play that are meaningful to a real world feel but are not necessarily apocalyptic in nature. A refreshing change from the usual “world is at risk” nonsense that infects many adventures.) Thins run a bit long for my taste, but as preamble and post-script that’s not a huge deal. I will note that there is also a section noting the adventures inclusion in the larger world which states “As such, the Referee could use this adventure as part of a wider campaign arc involving one or both factions.” This is something that should have been mentioned in the marketing, greatly increasing the appeal for those playing in that way but there’s essentially no way to know that until you have the product in hand.
We’ve got an abbey devoted to a saint. A few hundred years ago Something Bad happened and it became a no go zone, weird and strange effects abound. Recently things have settled down a bit, leaving you open to exploration. In actuality, an abbot got uppity, did some magic that fused the saint and nemesis. This has resulted in about half of the crypts underneath being a kind of chaos zone and the other half somewhat settled with the remaining monks devoted to caring for their new hybrid/crazy/resurrected saint. Oh, and they get resurrected when they die and are locked in to the complex. And sometimes the resurrection doesn’t take right and they go insane. Thus we have the upper ruins, a kind of undead/chaos zone with a rift, and a somewhat settled zone in the dungeon with the monks. Who have a couple of factions, one devoted to maintaining their watch and another sect who wants out. These three zones provide a decent amount of variety to play and I’m happy to see it, especially in something with,say, fifty room keys.
The situations here contribute to a spooky vibe, from a couple of different angles. Fans of the Stalker movie will get that kind of unearthly weird vibe from several of the effects. Then there is the outright creepiness that the ruins above provide, that is then augmented by the theming of the religious ruins that hits in several places to build that feeling.
There are children in the upper ruins. In ragged clothes, filthy dirty. Children playing and laughing in such a dangerous place should immediately put the party on edge. Further, you might encounter them digging, with their hands, in the graveyard. Digging up bones. Especially teeth. Mr Rag-and-Bone is their friend! Later we see taxidermy, with them having prominent human teeth in them. This all leads up to The Gloom, something I mentioned in my initial review as a strong point. It remains strong, a collection of decaying crows in humanoid form, charming children, but caring for and nurturing its ‘foster children.’ This is clearly undead and evil, a thing from nightmares. But not done in a ham-fisted way and thus providing some complexity to play. I mean, I’m probably gonna stab the fuck out of it, but, also, hey, maybe it can do something for us? In other parts of the adventure there ARE things/people who can do things for you, (including a fair number of dead monk ghosts who want to be laid to rest and can provide from parting boons) but the adventure misses a little here by not including that data for Mr Rag-and-bones.
Theming in the adventure is good. Consistent details across several locations leads to a build up and set expectations well. Murals provide some context, and interactivity, but are handled better than murals in most adventures, with specific detail without going overboard. The chapel to a random saint has the saints themes in several of areas without really hitting you in the head with it.
There’s a big problem to solve in this adventure, should the party undertake it, in closing a rift. Related to that at the faction play elements with the ‘surviving monks’, which could lead to religious conflict, literally, and the head monk perhaps, in duplicity, sending the party on a fatal quest. “If you all jump in to the rift with this magic sceptre then all problems will be solved!” … says the leader of faction that wants to maintain the status quo. As they say, trust but verify. Other places have crypts to open, chains to pull, and obstacles (literally) to overcome. There IS a decent amount of stabbing, but even that is just a little bit more, like opening a tomb first and its coming out of it. Dummy, what did you think was going to happen when you open a tomb in a complex full of undead?
On to the OSE style … which is hit or miss here. The maps are clear and evocative, but I do wish there was a little more information on sound/light/reacting creatures on them. The style itself, well, it’s OSE and I generally like it for the amount of information it provides in a very scannable way at the table. There are, though, I think, a couple of issues with it, at least as presented here.
First, I’m not sure it’s the best for presenting the sort of creepy environment here. I think most of that vibe comes from the situations rather than the evocative nature of the writing. I don’t think it starts strong with a lead in of creep vibe. Descriptions might starts with something like Limestone walls, charred beams and the like. I might say this is a violation of my general thinking that The Most Important Thing Comes First. A dragon, maybe, if its obviously there, but also the vibe you want to convey. It’s clearly supposed to be creepy but the lead-in is mundanity. That evocative nature to the rooms isn’t lead strongly.
Related to this is the dragon issue. Generally the creature in the room isn’t in the initial description. It follows later in its own section. I’m not a fan of this at all. We now need to hunt the entire room description to find the things we should be telling the party about, which is the entire point of the OSE style: to not have to do that. “Wait, there are gargoyles in this room? Oh, yeah, there’s statues in here.” you can eventually tell the players when you finally reach that section of the room description.
But, also, this is a pretty strong adventure. It is a real site-based adventure, and those tend to be few and far between. There is more than enough going on to provide a lot of complex play for your players and their characters. I’d run this.
This is $10 at DriveThru. Hey man, no preview?! Pfffft!
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/527291/the-ruined-abbey-of-st-clewyd?1892600