tenfootpole.org

by Josh Graboff
2e/Gold & Glory

This is a short murder investigation that leads to an evil cult. It’s got several things going for it: multiple factions, people who act like people, random complications, and a presentation style that is “place and timeline” rather than event or scene based. It also lacks a bit of focus, which can be seen in its thirty(!) page length. Overall it’s a pretty good example of how to present an adventure. If it could be tightened up a bit and focused more on gameable content then it would be a sure winner. As is … it’s hard to recommend given my obscenely high standards.

Let’s cover the presentation style first. There’s a timeline presented very early in the adventure. Given no interruptions by the party, this is what the evil cult do when. This is a great start. The cult exists outside of the party. Plans are in motion. Things will happen. Complimenting this is a list of NPC’s the party will/could encounter in the city. Again, very good. You can run into the major NPC’s almost anywhere so grouping them together in the beginning makes sense. Finally there are a list of places. Here’s the old house on the hill, what goes on there, and how the cult uses it. Here’s the whore house, who is there, and what they know. Here is the bar, who is there, and what they know. The sum total of this is that the DM is presented with tools to use to build the adventure around. There’s no need for a railroad, the DM now has the power to determine the whats and wherefores of the actions the party takes. It’s a breathe of fresh air after some of the railroad crap I’ve seen lately. This is how you present an adventure with a plot. Or, rather, how a plot adventure can be transformed into something in which the party has free will. I’m pretty sure Justin Alexander just wrote something to this effect recently. Don’t prep plots, prep situations. Give the DM the tools they need. This adventure does that. Well, mostly.

One of the other nice things is that the NPC’s and minions are not completely one dimensional. They are at least 1.9 dimensional, and sometimes two. They act like real people. If you’re about to slit their throat they surrender, or talk. How many times have we seen slobbering maniacs who don’t surrender and fight to the death? There’s a place for that, sometimes. But there’s an even larger place for people (and monsters) with a fucking hint of self-preservation. When every thing the party meets just attacks until death then the party will no longer try to talk, or parlay, or capture. It’s just a hack-fest. The game is SO much more interesting when the monsters/opponents talk.

This leads into the faction play. There are at least two factions to the evil bad guys, and maybe more if you squint a bit. A is getting too big for their britches and thinks they no longer need B. B is just about fed up with A’s attitude. That’s great! In addition to this there are a group of monsters who might revolt as well as … ready? A TOTALLY UNCONNECTED MAJOR EVENT GOING ON. That’s GREAT! Zombie movies are not about the zombies. It’s about what people do when confronted with pressure. Similarly, the major event in this adventure adds complications to what the party’s already doing. It puts pressure on them and adds all new avenues of events. It’s great!

The adventure does a couple of other nice things, like having large groups of enemies (2d8 guards …) and giving some explicit advice to the DM about how to warn the party that at least one of the Evil Bad Guys is quite powerful. Fair’s fair. A 23rd level orc that looks like a normal orc is not fair. The party needs fair warning that he’s a 23rd level anti-paladin … then there’s no guilt when they charge in and you kill them.

There are two significant improvements I think would have turned this adventure into something really specials. First, a reference sheet. All of the NPC’s on one page in a table, where they are, a couple of words on personalities and maybe what they know. This is the kind of basic DM assistance that every adventure should provide the DM with.

Second, the descriptions are too wordy. They are full of trivia not useful to the adventure. This is usually what I’m referring to when I say something like “the adventure lacks focus.” If it’s not relevant to the adventure then it should almost always be trimmed. The usual sins are “history” and “NPC backstory” (which I guess could be called history also.) The trivia presented is only relevant if it directly impacts the adventure. Then we wouldn’t call it trivia. The adventure does this a lot, in just about every description of a place or NPC.

A good example is the whorehouse. We learn who founded it, and why. But it then goes on to say that the current operators have been running it for 30 years and no one remembers the former owners and only know the cruelty of the current management. Then what’s the point of the history? STOP EXPLAINING! I loathe explanations in D&D adventures. I don’t care where the fucking toilet empties unless the party can explore it. I don’t care about the history of the whorehouse unless it’s relevant to the adventure. The same goes for NPC’s. I don’t care about their twin sister unless it somehow impacts the adventure. It’s irrelevant. Focus! Focus on the adventure!

Unlike most adventures which lack focus, this one does provide some good content. After the backstory/history generally comes a sentence or two of descriptive text or attitude that helps you bring the NPC to life. This is a bit hit & miss. The whores get some decent personality/quirks but many of the other NPC’s could use a bit more … life? They need a quirk, something to remember them by, something to bring them to life. The tavern, where the adventure starts is a good example of this. The NPC’s there come off a bit flat, as does the tavern proper. It/they need something else to bring it all to life and really solidify itself in the DMs head.

Again, while not a good adventure it’s not really a bad one either. Hopefully we’ll see more, and better, in the future.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/105052/Sordid-Stories-from-the-Mother-City?1892600

by Richard LeBlanc jr
New Big Dragon Games Unlimited
D&D
Levels 4-6

Azeneth believed the life of the high priest (or priestess) should be as comfortable as that of the kings and the gods. She spoke her contempt for her father’s “weakness” loudly and publicly, almost from the time she learned to talk. As she neared her teens, she made it known her plan was to supplant her father and become high priestess of the temple, sometimes claiming it was her place as the incarnation of the goddess Nekhbet. Many say Azeneth has the power to command serpents, and it was she who sent the asp that killed her father Kemosiri. Regardless, she seized her position as high priestess of the temple and set about her accumulation of power and wealth. Recently, children from the villages around the temple have begun to disappear. Rumors abound that Azeneth is sacrificing them and cannibalizing them because she believes this will make her wealthier, more powerful, and more divine. The people of the villages have begun to refer to Azeneth as the “ogress of Anubis”—believing it was Anubis himself that made this woman mad, and commanded her to consume the children she sacrifices. Someone must end this reign of fear and terror, and try to return the children alive—if it is in the will of the gods.

This is an egyptian themed adventure. It’s a raid on a temple compound to find some missing children. It’s more historically accurate than it is interesting. Or at least it looks historically accurate … since I don’t know nothing about Egypt. It’s interesting to review this so close to Valley of the Five Fires. The differences (dare I say improvement?) are quite interesting. It hits some of my pet peeves, and ultimately the goodies are few enough to make it uninteresting to me. Never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn …

The adventure does a few things very right. It presents the area around the temple, including the villages. Each village gets a sentence or two to let the DM build on. Pretty good. Better would be that there was also something interesting in each village. Maybe you can fix this by taking some of the “continue the adventure” hooks at the end of the adventure and working them in. The temple compound area is pretty nice also. Priests, guards, support staff and pilgrims will around. It’s very much presented as a locale that exists outside of the party … and then the party gets to dream up how they will get in. That’s very nice. It harkens back to the scene in 13th Warrior where they see the camp outside of the cave lair and talk about getting in. I wish more adventures would do this sort of thing. It’s always memorable when the designer doesn’t railroad you into something. There’s other little bits and pieces that also make this nice, like the parents of the missing children insisting on going with you (Fucking finally! You’d think no one in D&D-landia loved their children they way all =seem to usually avoid trying to help you rescue their kin.)

There’s A LOT of mundane magic items in this adventure. It seems like every guard has a +1 sword, a +1 bow and a +1 dagger. And it’s all boring. “they each have a +1 dagger.” Oh, my, that’s exciting. If the need is to give them a +1 to hit then just give them a +1 to hit. “They all pump iron, bro-style, every day. +1 hit & damage.” Don’t kill the mystery and wonder of the magical by making it mundane. In fact, the mundane treasures are are a lot better. Alabaster objects, gold blood bowls, and so on. Very nicely described.

The temple proper is pretty linear and, I suspect, very historically accurate. Historically Accurate does not mean fun. Some of the setups in it are nice, like cages full of screaming children, a sacrifice in progress, and reed baskets with skeleton children in them. The adventure needs more of that … although … even that seems to be missing some … joy? It’s all presented VERY fact based. I like things organized but the text must also inspire the DM and mundane facts are generally not the way to do it. I’m not talking gonzo, or explosion-sounds, but rather a dynamic writing style to bring the descriptions to life.

This isn’t a bad adventure so much as it’s not really a good one. I guess it’s serviceable, but mostly uninspiring.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/116272/TM1-The-Ogress-of-Anubis?1892600

by Stuart Robertson
D&D
Levels 1-3

The Citadel casts a dark shadow from it’s mountain. Can you find a path to the top and rescue your kinfolk?

This is, I think, a one page, that I’m not sure how I ended up with. There’s a certain amount of performance art that goes along with one-page dungeons. “See what you can do in just one page!” You can certainly do a lot in one page, this adventure proves that. And you can do a lot more in two pages. This is, in essence, an artificial constraint on the review. For what this is, a one page dungeon, it is quite good.

It’s in four parts: a cave complex level, a crypt level, a small basement dungeon, and a couple of rooms for a the castle. Twenty nine rooms and four maps is a pretty record for one page, especially given the amount of text for each room. It’s quite the accomplishment and points out just how much bloat there is in most adventures. The jerk-faced jerks who think I want everything spoon-fed to me should instead take a look at this. Focus is what this adventure brings. Classic tropes. I want to point out that the dungeon rooms do what they should. This is HUGE. I think I first time I remember seeing this was in some Raggi thing, although the classic “if you clean up the defiled shrine then you are rewarded” thing is a relative. For example, if you light a candle in the deserted shrine then you are rewarded. Players LUV it when logic works in the dungeon. They get a sense of accomplishment. Of figuring things out. And that’s a Martha Stewart Good Thing.

The first room is “Entrance cave – Illuminating this large natural cave is the lantern from two gnomes looking for their lost companion.” That’s pretty minimal. It’s also pretty evocative. A cave. Shadowy lantern light making strange shapes on the walls. Whispering in the darkness. Two weirdo’s on a mission. Tentative? Combined with desperation? So much is implied, inspired, by the description given. This is the power of the minimal, but evocative, description. It’s not 3 paragraphs long with reactions for everything under the sun. It sets the scene and gives the DM’s imagination a good SHOVE in the right direction. Similarly, room 3 is “Pool Room – This room is lit by a dim red glow from 3 fire beetles on the walls. A Blessing pool contains 12 coins.” Again, focus. Inspiring. Adjectives, adverbs, effects without exposition. And it works the way you think it should. A pool? With coins in it? Well you should throw a coin in it of course … especially in a Level One adventure.

As a basic adventure I think this succeeds quite well. It reminds me a bit of the best parts of the Caves of Chaos. Minimal room descriptions, but with some interesting content.

And because I am a dick, I’ll offer some advice for improvement. This is going to be more nit-picky than I would usually be, but not, I think, uncalled for in a one-pager. It is, in some places redundant. In only one page that can be a missed opportunity. For example, room 5 is: “5. Yellow Mist – a thick yellow mist clings to the ground here. Characters have a 2 in 6 chance of falling in hidden pit.” That’s twice we’re told there’s a yellow mist. Naming the room something else would allow even more imagination. “5. Guano Filled – a thick yellow mist clings to the ground here. Characters have a 2 in 6 chance of falling in hidden pit.” Now we know an additional fact about the room. I’m not suggesting that guano-filled is the way to go, but I would assert that SOMETHING else is the way to go.

There’s also a room or two that is … wasted? “Antechamber – This room is magically silent. These doors are heavy and require an Open Doors check.” Antechamber is not very descriptive. The room being magically silent is wasted because it plays no part. There’s no impact to it being silent. Because of this it’s more window dressing, and thus wasted. Nothing nearby that the silence impacts, noting in the room that the silence impacts. Maybe something like “Unearthly Silence – Highly vaulted. These doors are heavy and require and open doors check.”

Finally, in just one page you’re not getting much in the way of great monster, magic, or mundane treasure descriptions. Thems the breaks … and points out the limitations of the one page format.

This is a classic adventure. I like the classics. If everything published were at least this good I’d be a happy man. All in one page. Reading this, and then going back to look at one of the new 5e WOTC adventures really points out the difference in styles. The bloat present in the WOTC products that adds little to the adventure becomes glaring.

Print this and stick it in your B copy of B/X and you’re ready to go.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/108268/Citadel-of-Evil?1892600

by Hereticwerks
Swords & Wizardry
Levels 1-3

An old plundered tomb where many a grave-robber got their start … now it’s your turn to spend the night.

This is an interesting little thing. It’s a three room cave. That’s 20 pages long. That’s usually the lead in to a Bryce Lynch monstrous ranting diatribe. Not in this case. This thing is like some academic treatise on how to add complications to an adventure. It seems like every possible avenue of additional complications has been added in .. and all in table format. The tabular format allows for quite a bit of additional use. This thing could almost stand in for every adventure ever written or to be written in the “small cave adventure” sub genre. It’s got a big font and doesn’t make the best use of its whitespace, but what it does have is A LOT of those little evocative things that I’m looking for. Those things that I believe are at the core of a good adventure, that a DM can riff off of for hours of content. It could use a bit of improvement in consistently providing those bits … or maybe I mean in consistently making them specific and actionable. The tabular data strays into “bizarre window dressing for the sake of window dressing” on more than one occasion. Those are the weakest parts of the adventure, but there is more than enough in the way of goodies to keep this fresh time and time again.

Three rooms. Each room has a loot table for things you may find. And who you might mind in the room when you arrive. And you might wander in while you there. And then usually something else like where does the crack go” or “what does the obelisk do.” In addition to the three rooms there’s also “the wilderness on the way to way to the caves”, which also tables for wanderers, bad weather, animal dens, and trail hazards. Finally there’s the section on town rumors and guides. Again, multiple tables for each. This is the primary way that the adventure fills those 20 pages and how it fills the role of several adventures in one. The adventure is almost completely table driven and, unlike almost every other adventure that is table driven, does it well.

The strength of the adventure is in the tables, or more precisely: specificity of the content in the tables. For example, there are six NPC guides offered. “Weird Willy. Seems normal enough.” or “That Blakely Boy. Not the brightest, probably not the best, but most folks figure he’s too dumb to lie.” Or Constance, the Harpy with a crippled wing that can’t climb or swim well. This is PERFECT. It’s just a sentence for each but it adds an enormous amount of potential energy to riff off of. This are all examples of the sorts of content I’m looking for. There’s this very small space between “too generic” and “too much information.” The examples I cited fall perfectly into that sweet spot. It’s the kick start the DM needs to get them going and add and build for the rest of the sessions. The tables go on and on this way. It’s wonderful. “Last trip out your guide was bit by a creature they were barely able to fight off. They aren’t sure if it was a lycanthrope or something else.” OMG! I can use that over and over again in an adventure to add life to the NPC. “A dead basilisk carcass, washed out of its burrow. If the lair was occupied then there is a viable egg in the nest …” Wonderful wonderful content.

Except when it’s not. A smaller percentage of the content is trivia. Content which is not actionable, which you can’t riff off of. Ok, I guess you can riff off of anything, but some content is better at this than other. Crystals are “warm to the touch and smooth”, “they appear to be … breathing?” Certainly interesting, especially the breathing one, but much more … high-level? and not quite as gameable.

I might mention that, similarly, the rumor table could use a bit of work. There IS one, which is great, and the core of the rumor content is pretty good also. And it all ends with “Any of these rumors might be true …” Well, now, that smacks of a “it was all just a dream” television episode. Cop. Out. Let me also say that while the rumors are quite good, as these things go, they could be quite a bit better. The last rumor is something like “This place makes a poor hide-out, as three separate bandit bands have learned to their great displeasure and loss.” Not bad. But SO much better if it were conveyed as something like “overheard in a bar: bertie’s boys didn’t come back from the cave last night. Yeah? Clint says Yanys got arrested but I heard they fled after half were mauled in the cave” or something like that. Just a bit more color.

Overall this is a great adventure toolkit. I’d be much happier paying money for this (it’s free, I believe) then I would a hundred other lengthier products.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/131634/GL1-Taglars-Tomb-Revised?1892600

by Hereticwerks
Swords & Wizardry
Levels 1-3

An old plundered tomb where many a grave-robber got their start … now it’s your turn to spend the night.

This is an interesting little thing. It’s a three room cave. That’s 20 pages long. That’s usually the lead in to a Bryce Lynch monstrous ranting diatribe. Not in this case. This thing is like some academic treatise on how to add complications to an adventure. It seems like every possible avenue of additional complications has been added in .. and all in table format. The tabular format allows for quite a bit of additional use. This thing could almost stand in for every adventure ever written or to be written in the “small cave adventure” sub genre. It’s got a big font and doesn’t make the best use of its whitespace, but what it does have is A LOT of those little evocative things that I’m looking for. Those things that I believe are at the core of a good adventure, that a DM can riff off of for hours of content. It could use a bit of improvement in consistently providing those bits … or maybe I mean in consistently making them specific and actionable. The tabular data strays into “bizarre window dressing for the sake of window dressing” on more than one occasion. Those are the weakest parts of the adventure, but there is more than enough in the way of goodies to keep this fresh time and time again.

Three rooms. Each room has a loot table for things you may find. And who you might mind in the room when you arrive. And you might wander in while you there. And then usually something else like where does the crack go” or “what does the obelisk do.” In addition to the three rooms there’s also “the wilderness on the way to way to the caves”, which also tables for wanderers, bad weather, animal dens, and trail hazards. Finally there’s the section on town rumors and guides. Again, multiple tables for each. This is the primary way that the adventure fills those 20 pages and how it fills the role of several adventures in one. The adventure is almost completely table driven and, unlike almost every other adventure that is table driven, does it well.

The strength of the adventure is in the tables, or more precisely: specificity of the content in the tables. For example, there are six NPC guides offered. “Weird Willy. Seems normal enough.” or “That Blakely Boy. Not the brightest, probably not the best, but most folks figure he’s too dumb to lie.” Or Constance, the Harpy with a crippled wing that can’t climb or swim well. This is PERFECT. It’s just a sentence for each but it adds an enormous amount of potential energy to riff off of. This are all examples of the sorts of content I’m looking for. There’s this very small space between “too generic” and “too much information.” The examples I cited fall perfectly into that sweet spot. It’s the kick start the DM needs to get them going and add and build for the rest of the sessions. The tables go on and on this way. It’s wonderful. “Last trip out your guide was bit by a creature they were barely able to fight off. They aren’t sure if it was a lycanthrope or something else.” OMG! I can use that over and over again in an adventure to add life to the NPC. “A dead basilisk carcass, washed out of its burrow. If the lair was occupied then there is a viable egg in the nest …” Wonderful wonderful content.

Except when it’s not. A smaller percentage of the content is trivia. Content which is not actionable, which you can’t riff off of. Ok, I guess you can riff off of anything, but some content is better at this than other. Crystals are “warm to the touch and smooth”, “they appear to be … breathing?” Certainly interesting, especially the breathing one, but much more … high-level? and not quite as gameable.

I might mention that, similarly, the rumor table could use a bit of work. There IS one, which is great, and the core of the rumor content is pretty good also. And it all ends with “Any of these rumors might be true …” Well, now, that smacks of a “it was all just a dream” television episode. Cop. Out. Let me also say that while the rumors are quite good, as these things go, they could be quite a bit better. The last rumor is something like “This place makes a poor hide-out, as three separate bandit bands have learned to their great displeasure and loss.” Not bad. But SO much better if it were conveyed as something like “overheard in a bar: bertie’s boys didn’t come back from the cave last night. Yeah? Clint says Yanys got arrested but I heard they fled after half were mauled in the cave” or something like that. Just a bit more color.

Overall this is a great adventure toolkit. I’d be much happier paying money for this (it’s free, I believe) then I would a hundred other lengthier products.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/131634/GL1-Taglars-Tomb-Revised?1892600

by Venger Satanis
Kort’thalis Publishing
Fantasy RPGs
Hex Crawl

People only travel to the purple islands infrequently. It is this lack of tourism that gives it mystery. After all, everyplace is a bit weird once you first lay eyes on it. Those seeking adventure will find it. Those brought to the islands against their will should have their hands full.
This is a slightly gonzo hex-crawl on a series of three islands that are close together. There are sword & sorcery elements, gonzo elements (spaceships, time travelers, etc) and lovecraftian elements. The book has several issues, like the map, but overall they don’t detract enough from the awesome to make me not keep this. Yes, this makes it one of the few: a Bryce keeper. More than that, while I usually only do hex-crawls in PDF format, this might make it to print form … meaning I’d run it almost as-is, as opposed to mining it for seeds, hooks, and ideas.

I should note going in to this review that I love gonzo … AND you could also use this in Gamma World. It’s not the gonzo that makes this a good adventure, that’s just the icing.

This thing has a SHIT TON going on. Some may criticize the throw-everything-at-the-wall approach Venger has taken but I rather enjoyed it. It lets you pick and choose what to keep. Besides, I LOVE having a lot going on for the players to pick from. A complex and interrelated environment gives a much more solid sense of reality than the simplistic environments usually presented. In these cases, more IS better. Ultimately the strength of this book is derived from both the large number of things going on and the action-oriented nature of the hex encounters.

Action-oriented might be the wrong word. Maybe gameable content is better. ANyway, I think I covered this for the first time when I compared The Wilderlands to Hex Crawl Chronicles to Isle of the Unknown. Wilderlands and HCC had many more encounters that were written in a way to encourage interactivity. Let’s call that style Noun-Verb. Isle was written in the much flatter Noun format. “There is a bird here.” or “There is a statue here.” Compare this to the noun-verb style of “There are three mermen here hunting a wild boar.” That’s the first hex description from this particular hex-crawl, Purple. It goes on for just a bit but you get the idea. Rather than “3 mermen” or “Wild boar” it gives us something to interact with. Help them? Hinder them? Help the boar? Helping them might open up lines of communication … And so it will go at your table. The description is written in a way to encourage game play and interactivity. At least a great many of them are. It devolves at times into Noun format and that it one of the points where the book is weak. “There is a spaceship here.” is the entirety of one hex description. That is clearly pretty open ended and a DM could do anything with that. And yet, if it were a noun-verb format then you’d have yet another seed/more gameable content AND still have the noun available for the DM. The second hex described falls in this noun category as well, describing a giant skeleton graveyard littered with small totems and fetishes, and a slightly dissolved purple statue. Very interesting … but much more interesting would be something going on at this location. Overall though there is more than enough Noun-Verb content to keep the place VERY interesting.
I would also note that, unlike many hex crawls, Venger gives you some seeds to get things kicked off. These are pretty nice, in theory, and help solve one of the big Hex Crawl dilemmas: why are we wandering around? “necromancer of mount crystal, Totas Mundi, is raising an army of undead to conquer the islands. His doom hawks and zombie hordes routinely scour the main island of Korus for succulent prey,” This is just one of ten seeds given (I’d use them all, at the same time) and you can see how it might drive play. It falls down though in providing just a bit more for the DM. Just two more sentences and it would be at super-star levels. “His base is in hex 0416 and he organically expands NE. The snake-people are natural allies while the dark cultists oppose on philosophical grounds.” What this has done is grounded the seed into the actual island environment. It give the DM a place to start and provides a few reactions for some of the many factions to be found on the island.

I might pick nits that the various factions also exist in a vacuum, with their relationships to each other determined randomly. This is probably the contention between a box of legos (determine relations randomly) and an actual adventure (Bob loves Mary who hates Carl.) Either are ok, but I would suggest that things like this are to be left to change then perhaps calling them in a more organized fashion (“Chapter 2. Determining the setup of the Islands.”) might have been a better way to organize it, along with perhaps some ideas on the various implications. But, Factions! Yeah!

Here and there are bits that could use a little grounding. A great example of this is the rumor table. The first entry is “There is a blue-skinned queen that rules over the island.” That’s certainly not terrible, and is wat I would call “the usual” when it comes to rumors. I like things a bit more specific though. “The island is ruled by the 4-armed blue-skinned queen Markuva, who collects teeth.” Even better would be something like “Watch out boy! That blue-skinned bitch Markuva comes in the night to steal your teeth to use for her army to rule the island with!” Same thing, but more colorful and specific. I find these spur the imagination of the DM more than the generic form of rumor found in most products.

Finally, there’s the issue of the map. It needs some work. It is, essentially, a map of an island with a few terrain features and a numbered hex-grid overlaid on it. What’s missing is data. The party is in hex 403. They befriend mermen after helping them catch a wild pig. “Where’s the nearest village?” the party asks. Uh … I don’t know. Let me check. 15 minutes later you’ve scanned all of the entries and found a village. Placing landmarks of import on the map would have helped A LOT. As is a DM is going to have to do that themselves. Small icons of tribes, villages, domains of control (“Overlord territory!”, “Domain of the Dark Cults!”) would have all helped the map become an integral tool of the DM and kept the DM from having do this themselves, or at least minimized the effort needed.

There’s a lot of content in this book. Besides the hexes there’s A LOT of house rules, great magic items and monsters, empty dungeon layouts, and about a jillion different things going on, from crystals, to magic rain, to radiation, to … it’s easy to lose track.

This is not only a great hex crawl, it’s also a great little campaign sourcebook. Certainly worth owning.