A4 – Usurpers of the Fell Axe

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Bryce Lynch

This is a Castles & Crusades adventure, although it can easily be used with any pre-4E version of D&D.

This is a rather generic city adventure. The various personalities are not fleshed out much, and there is a definite lack of subplots. The hooks provided are weak and the various NPC interactions are light as well. This is going to take some work to get some high-quality city play out of it.

There’s a city of about 200 souls. In it is a certain Baron who has come under the control of an evil cult/cabal. The players might want to do something about it. Or then again, maybe they don’t.

City adventures are tough. You need a lot of personality and subplots to make the place come alive, otherwise it’s just Yet Another City Hack Fest with the players treating your NPCs like target practice instead of real people. Cities are large and complex living things; I’m not sure I’ve EVER seen a good city supplement.

This module is in three parts. The first is the largest and describes the various locations within the city that may relate to the adventure hooks. The second section is a list of all of the NPC’s that were described in the first section, along with their motivations. The third section has stat blocks for all the NPC. Thus the second two sections are really only for reference, which I can fully appreciate. The NPCs could show up anywhere and having a generic location independent reference is a very good idea.

The city locations are not going to knock your socks off. A brief description of the barons keep. A couple of inns, A couple of guilds (silk & sheep), a marketplace, and so on. Only 12 places in all, including the Barons keep. There are a couple of mini-dungeons, lair-type, under the city that are connected to … The Sewers! Not only do the people of this fair town tolerate the presence of a sewer system, known to all as a universal breeding place for evil, but they are ignoring the members of the rat-catching guild complaining that the rats are all gone. As a potential town council member I want to recommend you not build sewers for your town AND you listen to your beggars and rat-catchers. It’s good insurance.

Lets talk hooks. “You’ve heard the Baron is unfair and the sheep guild is offering a reward for his head.” Seriously? “Find out why the silk guild is successful.” and “Just passing through when you get in a bar fight with the cult.” are little better. Maybe the party took part in A3 and found some clues that the evil base was working with people in town. Even that one is a kind of stretch. The “Whats in it for me?” factor is a little low on this one. “This is tonights adventure” might work as well. Seriously, the DMis going to have to put some work in to this to flesh out the city in a major way and get the players motivated to investigate.

The NPC’s are a little one-dimensional. They have some notes concerning the current plot, but not much else. There are some people that the players could use a co-conspirators to overthrow the Baron and start a coup, but it’s not clear how the PC’s are going to stumble upon this, especially in the short term. This sort of conspiracy/X-Files thing tends to work better from the sidelines, being revealed as subplot as the party does other things. Then, as they build trust and and come to know the city better they can explore the main plot. There’s just not enough detail in this product to do anything but the run the main plotline, everything else is going to have to come from the DM.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/54409/Castles–Crusades-A4-Usurpers-of-the-Fell-Axe?affiliate_id=1892600

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A3 – The Wicked Cauldron

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Bryce Lynch

This is a Castles & Crusades adventure module, although it can easily be used with any pre-4E version of D&D.

This is a seven level fortress/dungeon set in a ziggurat. The entire place is populated by one army. There is a certain amount of interesting detail, however the writing is a little bland and verbose. A DM running will need to spend significant time prepping the module.

What we are presented with here is a very good example of a LE fortress. The forces of evil have an ancient ziggurat that they are conducting operations out of. From this regional base they send out spies, bribes, assassins, raiders, and generally scheme for the domination of the surrounding region. Leading this particular fortress is the Witch Queen (not related.) She’s running a working temple and bureaucratic base and trying to get a lot done. If the modules have been played in order then the players have a thrown a wrench in to some of her works in A2 and have followed up to find this base of evil. They have their work cut out for them.

The Ziggurat has seven levels and 78 keyed locations. That’s a lot of dungeon to epxlore. Since it’s a ziggurat, the levels get larger and larger and the characters descend in to the fortress. While the first level only has three rooms the final level has 25 or so locations. Despite many of the initial maps being small the level layouts are pretty nice. Most of the levels have alternate paths between locations, and each of the levels has multiple stairways up and down. There are many secret and concealed doors as well. I like this sort of map complexity because it allows for more player options. The party can decide to sneak around a different way, or even take the stairs down to the next level to come around the back way. It also allows for many more avenues of flight and for ambushes, something which should come up a lot in this module. There’s a nice wandering monster table provided for the wilderness that has some monster motivations ion it. This is just a word or two, but I like it when products do this. It helps bring the world to life. The ziggurat table is a little more boring, just a typical list with a couple of NPC’s thrown in.

The fortress has quite a few goblinoid servants, who are mostly cowardly, as well as lots of humanoid guards ranging from orcs through ogres to trolls. In addition there are a smattering of priests around, as well as the witch queen proper and a few of her guests and visitors. The party MAY have the opportunity to bluff their way in, however once combat starts things are going to get hairy. My reading of the module is that folks are packed in pretty tight and a combat is going to bring guards to investigate. That _should_ quickly lead to a coordinated response to the interlopers. This is probably the biggest fault of the product;with a large and organized band of opponents the DM could use some help. A brief chart or map entires noting nearby guards and their responses would be VERY helpful in running this. Without it the DM is going to need to spend some serious time making map notations and charts to help coordinate the inevitable response to the parties incursion. Hopefully the party is smart and runs easily; a group of 3rd and 4th levels characters are going to have trouble with a well-coordinted response from large numbers of multi-HD creatures. Remember all those alternate paths and stairs? They work for the monsters also …

The fortress is populated with an assortment of folk. A party bluffing their way in, it is a working temple after all, should get to interact with both guards and other humans and the like. While they generally do have some background motivations presented it does end up being mostly a moot point. They are all evil and no one is going to change their ways. At best they betray the party later to get in good with the boss lady. This lack of factions in the module is disappointing. With so many evil people running around you’d think SOMEONE wants to be in power besides the Witch Queen. They are all good little drones though, so no factions.

There’s a decent assortment of traps and strange new magic items presented. While the traps tend to be of the ‘trapped chest’ variety, he magic items are more interesting. Many of them are atypical. I’m looking at adventure modules because I’m an unimaginative git who needs help getting things going, so new magic items with unusual powers are exactly the sort of thing I’m looking for. In addition, many of the rooms have some unusual features. There’s a sad lack of “pools of water” or “trees with strange fruit” to experiment with, however this is an evil temple. That means a large assortment of “you feel strange ” rooms, rooms with negative modifiers, and strange idol type things. I generally like these sorts of things. In this case though, the writing is a little … bland. Maybe it’s because it’s also a bit verbose, but the entire module just feels a little flat to me, in terms of atmosphere. I wish I could be more explicit in my analysis but I don’t think I can be. The product just didn’t fire my imagination. The overall atmosphere of a LE humanoid base just wasn’t interesting and there were no strong weird elements or atmospheric elements to kick it up a bit.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/24506/Castles–Crusades-A3-Wicked-Cauldron?affiliate_id=1892600

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A2 – The Slag Heap

Posted on November 19, 2011 by Bryce Lynch

This is a Castles & Crusades adventure module, although it can easily be used with any pre-4E version of D&D.

This is a village heavy adventure. Three separate marginal villages are encountered. There is a progression of evil in the three villages, although none of them are outright hostile. The villages are FULL of factions. This makes the entire place a bit of a sandbox in which the party works to obtain whatever the adventure hook is. It’s a fabulous little piece, primarily because of the factions and potential for social interactions that are not generally present with evil humanoids and bandits.

What happens to civilization when the borderlands retract? When the mines play out and the crops fail a few years in a row? What’s left is someplace just past he borderlands. A lawless place full of bandits, outlaws, escaped convicts, rogues, mercenaries, bounty hunters, and all of their various hangers on. That’s what’s presented here. Just past the last of the civilized strongholds are a series of three marginal/failed villages. Created to support mining, they never really thrived and the mines played out quickly, and poorly. The three villages each represent a slightly different quality of collapse. The first has a tavern, but almost everyone drinks for free. The second has a tavern, with humanoids camped out in it. The third is a fully humanoid controlled village, the victim of an invasion and slaughter. The entirety of the three villages and the surrounding regions  are ostensibly under the control of a bandit lord. The first village shows more of this control, the second less, and the third almost none. All of the villages have a raw lawlessness feel to them. It borders on hostility but may better be described as bullies. None of the villagers, humans or humanoids, are outright hostile to the point of attacking the party on sight. This is a lawless society where might makes right … and without any real organization.

Surrounding the locations are the various motivations & goals of the inhabitants. There are A LOT of factions thrown in to this mix. Ready? Set! Baron Jerkface wants to acquire the lands of his neighbor, Baron Inexperienced. To this end his pays off a notorious band of humanoid raiders, the Red Caps, to raid Inexperienced’s lands. Inexperienced will then have to beg Jerkface for help and he’ll extract an oath of fealty from him. Once this happens Jerkface will pay off the Red Caps and ride to the rescue. But he’s not dealing with the Red Caps, he’s dealing with one band of the Red Caps, and they don’t intend to stop raiding once they receive the final payment, leveraging the deal in to an extortion scheme to raise their position within the greater Red Cap band. Jerkface send a group of men to negotiate with the Red Caps. They take the payment and stop raiding or they send the Red Caps heads back as a threat. The Red Caps send a group to negotiate with Jerkfaces men. Their order: get more money or send their heads back as a threat. Jerkfaces guys are in village 1, trying to figure out what to do next. Red Caps men are in village 2, trying to figure out what to do. The entire region is ‘under the control’ of a bandit king named Miles, who is really the rightful ruler of Jerkfaces lands. He’s not a good guy or a bad guy, he goes both ways. His bandits are called the Malcontents, and portions are located in village 1 and village 2. Neither are fond of each other, and each of these groups are basically lazy ruffians, fighting, eating, and drinking all day long, while exerting as little energy as possible. There’s an assassin present in one of the villages, hired by Jerkface to get rid of all the bounty hunters who are now showing up. He doesn’t want them exposing his plans. The villages are full of slave workers. They are ‘encouraged’ to remain and farm the land so the bandits will have food. The third village has an evil guy sent by his evil lord to take over the region. He’s lazy and apathetic so his evil lord sent a second evil guy, much more loyal and full of zeal. He’s in the third village also, and in the process of a subtle takeover. Finally, several of the slaves and humanoids are detailed and given short backgrounds and motivations. In to this environment the PC’s show up. There are five or six small hooks to get the PCs moving and traveling to these villages, however none are of the ‘epic quest’ variety. Bounty Hunting, spying, exploring, slaving and so on are all potential hooks.

This is one of the most socially complex environments I have ever seen. It is all presented VERY clearly and is easy to follow. The humanoids and humans are all presented as real living people. None are psycho-killers or frothing at the mouth. They are lazy, apathetic, want to get ahead with little work, and have personalities. I generally don’t like humanoids in my adventures however this product makes me want to warm to them. They are real. For example, in one room there are 12 orcs. Two of them are notorious and have names and reputations all over the region, with a small paragraph on them. Not just “HP 5 and HP 6.” All of this allows the PCs to interact with the bad guys and maybe move freely among them. This should be a fabulous environment for the party to explore and interact with.

The final village, a conquered gnome settlement, is the most stereotypical dungeon environment. The creatures here are all evil, not just lazy. It also has the most dungeon-like environment, and is the most organized. It has several nice touches of atmosphere, such as the humanoids all eating the driders children, spitted with cinnamon and spices. Yum!

The DM is going to have to do a little work to get the most out of this one. You really need to read through it, note the names of some of principal individuals and groups, and do some name dropping before the party gets close. Knowing Miles has a rep, or that the two orcs are notorious, and so on, will really help cement this location in the minds of the party. The various hooks are a little weak, but again with a little work the DM should be able to get several of them to link up and get the party visiting most of the areas.

This is available at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/3782/Castles–Crusades-A2-Slag-Heap?affiliate_id=1892600

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A1 – Assault on Blacktooth Ridge

Posted on November 18, 2011 by Bryce Lynch

This is a Castles & Crusades adventure module, although it can easily be used with and pre-4E version of D&D.

This is a small village area with a couple of cave complex dungeons and a few wilderness encounters. The various areas are a bit disconnected, and presented more as ideas for the DM to use, as opposed to a well-connected series of adventurers.

The various encounter areas in this adventure module are strangely disconnected. We’re presented with a village, several wilderness encounters, and a couple of dungeon complexes. These are strangely disconnected. The wilderness encounters don’t show up on any map, they are presented more in a way that the DM can force the PC’s to stumble across them. I suspect this is more like how many DM’s run their actual games: you go someplace (the village) to get an objective then stumble around the wilderness looking for your goal while meeting various encounters the DM has dreamed up. Finally the DM drops a hint in a wilderness encounter that leads you to the core dungeon. I understand that this is the essence of every town/wilderness/dungeon adventure, however the degree of … vagueness? in the various encounters means that this is essentially a story based adventure until you get to the main dungeon. Or perhaps it’s more like a sandbox or design kit, with many options provided to the DM in order to get the party doing something. In any event, it left me feeling a bit uneasy … even though I’ve railroaded my players many times in the past.

The town of Botkinburg is presented. It really only has a tavern/inn and a manor home. Everyone else is a farmer of some sort or another. About 25 areas in the town and nearby halfling village are described. The townsfolk are not particularly memorable, although they do each have some quirks. I wish there were more subplots going on than just the current crisis. Quite a few of the townsfolk may accompany the party if they try to recruit them. i appreciate that sort of detail in a town description, especially when it’s meant to be a home base. The potential recruits are of varying quality and have various motivations, which is a nice touch. There are some issues with the text in places. For example, a few of the townsfolk visit a witch in the woods. The witch lives 6 days in to the woods. That’s 12 days away from home. SOMEONE is going to notice that. Overall the village is not very impressive; Just Another Fantasy Village With A Problem. In this case, some humanoid raids and some missing/kidnapped children.

The wilderness encounters are more interesting. Rather, taken as a whole they are more interesting. The individual encounters lack atmosphere however when taken together they provide the campaign environment an interesting flair. Ruins in the wilderness. Strange magical animals, witches in the forest … it’s almost a lighter magical game, more realistic, and with the elements of the fantastic grounded in a more fairy-tale element. There’s an elder witch deep in the forest. She’s not necessarily hostile. There’s a giant magical intelligent otter that’s been captured and is being interrogated by bugbears. There’s an ogre living in an abandoned cliffside fort. These and more give the lands an interesting feel, although none of the individual encounters are very  atmospheric. One of the encounters is fairly large, a kobold cave complex with an old tomb at the end. The cave is interesting, with ledges, tunnels, and so on. The tomb portion, while small, is interesting as well, with walls to tunnel through and treasure presented in an interesting way. I actually preferred this small complex to the main dungeon, even though it has kobolds and is fairly linear. I should also note the wandering monster table is nicer than average. All of the entries on the table, humanoid and animal, are doing something. “After a raid, encamped” or “searching for new home” or “eating.” I like those sorts of elements. It helps bring a game world to life.

The main dungeon is in two parts, with a single connection between the two. The upper portion is occupied by humanoids while the lower section is more of an unused portion of a military complex from deep in the past. That portion has some treasure and and a nice spooky guardian. The upper portion basically just has humanoids. There’s about 30 keyed locations between the two locations, with most being on the upper portion. With one notable exception, there’s not much going on in the upper portion other than ‘room with goblinoid raiders.’ The lower portion, being abandoned, is more interesting from an exploration standpoint, but is far too small to be a major play area. I wish the upper portion had a more organized response to incursions and there were more weird and fantastic elements in the dungeon.

The village is realistic, which means boring. The wilderness encounters border on the fantastic, which is wonderful, although there is no wilderness map and it must therefore be a bit of DM railroad to get those encounters in to use. The core dungeon is really just a humanoid lair while the supplemental kobold dungeon is more interesting from an exploration standpoint.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/19422/Castles–Crusades-A1-Assault-on-Blacktooth-Ridge?affiliate_id=1892600

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A0 – The Rising Knight

Posted on November 17, 2011 by Bryce Lynch

This is a Castles & Crusades adventure module, although it can be easily used with an pre-4E version of D&D.

My copy of A0 is a part of Umbrage Saga boxed set. Your milage may vary.

This is a solid introductory adventure for a group of beginning characters. It touches on all the important points: an interesting base, a wilderness adventure, a dungeon crawl, some unusual/weird elements, and an ancient evil. It does a decent job in all of those areas but does not excel in any.

Life is hard out on the borderlands. You think that in moving your family away the heart of the kingdom that you are getting away from the wars, strife, and land disputes that a part of everyday life. You find a nice patch of bottom land next to some other folks and lay in to the hard life of a farmer. Things are rough but looking up when … a batch of monsters show up. Maybe life back in civilization wasn’t so bad after all …

A village on the borderlands is being threatened by some marauding humanoids. After a couple of raids they are now just outright extorting tribute from the villagers. The local rulers are too busy with their own troubles to send troops, so instead they offer a bounty on the humanoid bandit leaders head. That’s where the party comes in.

The small village of Mallforten is the one having the trouble. It’s a small village on the borderlands, primarily agrarian. There’s really only two shops: a tavern and a supplies shop. A tinker comes through once a month, most trade is in barter and lend/lease. The local gaol has a hanging tree out back with a rotted rope attached and hangmans mushrooms that grow underneath on nights of the full moon. There are twelve figures of note described in the village. Some may be allied to the players cause, some neutral, and some opposed … they are now spying for the raiders! The village description is a good one for a realistic portrayal of a small village on the borderlands. Townfolk gather at the tavern early in the morning after the cows are milked, and then the place clears out during the day while everyone works, filling up again in the evenings. That’s the sort of realistic touch that I appreciate. The townfolk described are likewise interesting in that they each have different reactions to the current crisis. It gives the impression that these are real people responding the way real people do: hurt feelings, pride, cowardice, greed, and so on. The kind of apathy of action and lack of clarity that dominates everyday life for most people. There’s a rumor table for the village and for the travelers on the road, as well as a short and uninteresting wandering monster table for getting to the village. There’s also a touch of fantasy thrown in, such as the poison mushrooms that grow under the hanging tree on nights with a full moon. I really like that light touch of the fantastic, especially in this product. The real world for most people is boring but just beyond the edges is the fantastic. Even to the extent of the party being bounty hunters … that’s not usually a role I suspect that most people see themselves in when they adventure, but it’s a realistic one and one that the villagers are going to appreciate, even if they are a bit apprehensive about armed strangers. Seven guys with Katanas walking in to town could spell trouble, even if they are there to ‘help.’ The major problem, and I use that term lightly, with the village is that it’s focused on the adventure. The subplots and feelings and interactions of the villagers are not detailed outside of the current troubles. Life goes on, even in times of trouble, so a couple of love subplots, or other interesting facts outside of the adventure goal, could have catapulted the village from being single use to being a classic location, such as Hommlet or Pembrooktonshire.

There’s a short wilderness journey, a few days, to get to the raiders. There’s some generic wandering monster tables and six opportunities for fixed encounters. These fixed encounters are not located on a map, just described. Most, if not all, of them are going to be missed without some serious intervention from the DM. A nymph that only comes out during a full moon. A haunted ridge line in the wilderness that only occurs during a crescent moon. Secretive fairies. The civilized world needs to imply that the fantastic is just around the corner and the wilderness should be  good place to encounter the fantastic. The encounters have a light, airy, fairy tale feel, which I throughly enjoy, it’s just not clear that they are going to be enjoyed by anyone except the DM reading them. This usually means the DM needs to force them on the party, which leaves a bad taste in my mouth. With some work the encounters could be re-rigged a bit so they occur near places the party might camp at night, or might travel past.

The raiders are hanging out at a ruined evil temple. A SENTIENT evil temple, which is trying to raise the last high priest. It just needs ONE more sacrifice and the EHP will be back in action. As such, the gnoll leader is mostly waiting in the sacrifice chamber for the party to show up, with the temple helping things around through the use of an illusion here or there to channel the party to the gnoll. The ruined temple has two dungeon levels. The entrance outside is realistic; multiple trails in the ruins all leading back to one point. The maps for the two levels are small, with just six of so keys for each levels. They are composed of a couple of large loops with some branching hallways. This isn’t enough for true explorative play however it’s ok for the ‘lure the pcs to the center’ type play. Most of the chambers are occupied by humanoid raiders, kobolds and goblins mostly, and a large number have ‘something else’ going on. A weak wall that can bashed through. A blood offering that should be made. A well, noisy dogs, and a scriptorium.  Lots for the party to investigate, mess around with, get in to trouble with, and things that don’t necessarily make sense from a rules standpoint. I love that sort of thing in my adventures. Screw your game mechanics! Weird & whimsical rule! The final fight should be fairly interesting, as the humanoids attempt to capture a pc and sacrifice them while the battle rages. The poor EHP adds a bit of flavor as well.

This is a solid little adventure. It doesn’t really excel in any area, other than it touching on nearly element of classic game play. It would make a fine introductory adventure, but I don’t see it as being a classic.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/84040/Castles–Crusades-A0-The-Rising-Knight?affiliate_id=1892600

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DB6 – Ulgakur: Dwellers in the Darkness

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Bryce Lynch

This is a Castles & Crusades adventure, although it can easily be used with any pre-4E version of D&D.

This product describes a major underground/underdark city. It’s ruled by a lich and the drow are only a minor species, for a change. The subplots and machinations are on the light side so this is really just a framework product for inserting your own plots in to an underground city environment. The tavern fare is nice. (Halfling stew is only guaranteed to contain 20% halfling.)

The underdeep city of Ulgakur was once ruled by goblins, until an evil group of adventurers took it over. Their leader is now a lich and in firm control of the city. He’s (it?) turned it in to a Free City of the underdeep. The vast majority of the inhabitants are made up of humanoids. The drow are few and far between; having been greatly reduced in number and power they are now little more than elite mercenaries. About 28 locations are detailed in the booklet. There are two or three bars, an inn for foreigners, a black library, the lich tower, a couple of evil temples, and so on. Each of these generally has a person detailed along with it’s description. I didn’t find much of interest except for the bars and the black library. The best part of the inns are their menu choices, including the halfling stew mentioned above. The black library is interesting in that it houses a portion of a very evil artifact. I can see that as being something interesting, both in this cities context and in a surface city. There’s a wandering monster table for the market and for the bars however it doesn’t strike me as being nearly as interesting as the visitors to the Vault. For the most part the location descriptions are void of subplot and motivation information. This is Not Good. If the locations are a little bland then we need to rely on the people and their plots. Without any of that then all that’s left is a pretty cut and dried description of an evil city. Market. Evil Wizard. Fungas Patch, etc. You could work at it pretty hard and get something, or perhaps combine this supplement with several other Evil City supplements to get something with some real character.

There are a fair number of extras in this. There are a couple of new races detailed: evil dwarves, and subterranean humans. There’s a new class, the COnjurer. This is a spontaneous caster with access to both Divine and Arcane spells. There’s about 16 new monsters detailed, a significant portion of which are just brutes with more HP than an orc. A couple of new magic items are detailed as well, none of which really fall in to the weird magic category that I’m so fond of.

Underground cities are a tough market. Everyone has seen Vault of Drow which means you not only have to build an interesting city, you have to make it evil, atmospheric, AND different from the Vault. Those are some tough cookies to crumble. I find that my taste in city supplements is directly related to colorful characters who live in them and the colorful places they contain. The orc bar from … Deadly Nightside? Or the various folks in Pembrooktonshire. That’s the kind of detail I’m looking for, quirky and memorable. Those sorts of supplements are few and far between. Generally I’m happy with a city supplement if I can steal two or three ideas. There’s at least one good idea in this so I’m left with a … Meh.

This is available at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/78605/Castles–Crusades-DB6-Dwellers-in-the-Darkness?affiliate_id=1892600

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DB5 – Dro Mandras II – The Conquered East

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Bryce Lynch

This is a Castles & Crusades adventure, although it can be used with an pre-4E version of D&D.

This may be a unique module. It provides for sandbox-like play in a city that is under siege. The players actions will influence which way the the siege goes. While rated for 4th level parties, it may be more fun at slightly higher levels. It’s going to take some homework by the DM to get the most out of it.

Dro Mandras is the capitol town of a certain Duchy, half on each side of a major river. The Duke gathered his forces and went out to subdue a group of neighboring kingdoms known as the Petty Princes, or Weakling Princes. While he was away there was a major humanoid uprising. They are ravaging his duchy and had broken through the walls of the eastern half of the city and were pillaging it when the Dukes army returned. Now both armies are racing north to beat each other to a nearby ford. Now the siege of the western shore, detailed in DB4 – The Free West, has slowed down while the boss is away … but progress continues in other ways.

The eastern map of the city has been divided up in to six or so sectors. Each sector has a number of buildings described, eight or so in general. Generally each sector is controlled by a different band of humanoids and their leaders with a couple of sectors having multiple bands in them. Each band has their own motivations, having been cajoled in to to joining the rampaging horde by the Big Bad, Yorgach. The various humanoid races tend to hate each other, and even hate other members of their own race that belong to a different tribe. The troops are held in check by their leaders, who generally have much bigger plans for the mass murder of their allies. In addition, each group has some sort of task they are in charge of for the continued siege of the city. Some man siege towers, others are sappers, and so on. There are large numbers of troops involved; I believe the most lightly defended sector has over a hundred while several have multiple hundreds of troops. Also on the eastern short is the last redoubt of a band of city defenders. They are hold up in a small walled off section of the eastern city. There the knights, paladins, dwarves, and other associated with the Adventuring Quarter are making a last stand and protecting a large group of refugees. They are under siege from the humanoids and many have vowed to fight to the last man.

Each section of the city has a number of objectives that the party could undertake to help lift the siege. Each has a point value associated with it, and when the point total reaches 400 then the infighting and loss of materials within the humanoid ranks will become so great that it’s possible for the cities defenders to take back their homes and lift the siege. While the various objectives are listed for the GM, no such list is going to be provided for the players. They will need to scope out the conquered eastern half of the city, find out what’s going on, and hopefully act like heroes and take actions they think will help lift the siege. And they need to do it in five days. In two days time the goblin sappers will have reached the walls of the last redoubt, and in three days more they will have collapsed the walls. Widespread slaughter will then ensue. The various objectives involve killing the leadership to provoke infighting, stopping the various sapping groups, discovering hidden magical artifacts, destroying siege equipment, and so on. This is going to be rough work. Many of the leaders are 8HD creatures, surrounded by groups of 4 HD creatures and then their masses of 1HD troops. Five days is not a lot of healing, and with most objectives being 20-40 points, the party is going to have their work cut out for them. There is some simple mass-combat advice given, which mostly works down to averaging large groups of opponents. This should help make some of the fights more manageable to run for the DM.

The various factions all had pretty interesting write-ups; I found them interesting, if a bit standard trope. Beyond the various objectives there are some areas with other little sub-plots, like the thieves guild hideout, mages and so on. There’s a fair number of non-standard encounters which tend toward the creative: zombie hands, staff of power breakages, holy sites that bless characters and so on. I really enjoy those sorts of things, it keeps the players on their toes. There’s a small dungeon provided in order to recover some holy relics to aid the last redoubt. It’s a ‘prove your worth’ type affair. I generally don’t like those, and I didn’t like this one. Lot’s of riddles and so on, which, at the levels suggested, has a significant possibility of frustrating players. I’m not looking for a cakewalk when it comes to puzzles, but relying on players to ‘Get It’ is not a worthwhile endeavor, in my experience.

If the party can get in to this section of the city and figure out how to move around mostly unseen then they should have a rollicking good time. A city under siege is a fantastic place to have a little sandbox type play. There’s a lot that the players can do: scheming, plotting, simple slaughter, clever plots, and so on. If I were to run this then I’d probably stretch the timeline out a bit more. Five days is just not enough time to fully experience what this place holds, hatch some plots, and see them through, not with rest & spell recovery to worry about. Alternatively, hooking the party up with some magic that accelerates healing and some rules for regaining spells from partial rest would really put the screws to the PC’s. “How long are you going to rest? A full night and you get a fireball back, but maybe all we need is a sleep or two to take out those siege towers, and that’s only 3 hours of rest.” This could be a nice little partisans campaign play area, with the party making supply drops, performing rescues, sabotaging equipment, spying, and getting in to all sorts of trouble. The major trouble area is going to be communicating and visiting the defenders in the last redoubt and with the free western side of the city. Figuring out how to run integrate those areas, in either a 5-day game or a longer game, will probably be the key to a successful game for the DM. Some kind of order of battle for each are would have been nice to see. I would probably also blow up the map and make a lot more notations on it, especially regarding troop strengths. Many of the humanoids have horns to call for help, and quickly knowing who’s nearby to provide support, or who’s territory the party is fleeing in to, will be important. Maybe something like those one-page adventures that are popular in certain circles.

Several of the Castles & Crusades modules have explored areas not traditionally covered. They’ve done a good job with this product in providing a locale and sandbox-like play in an area that is not often covered. Good city based games are the definition of sandbox play, while sieges and hordes are not something that is traditionally covered. The writing is a little flat at times, and the DM is going to have to do some homework, however it’s a very interesting product and unlike any I’ve seen before.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/60992/Castles–Crusades-DB5-The-Conquered-East?affiliate_id=1892600

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DB4 – Dro Mandras: The Free West

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Bryce Lynch

This is a Castles & Crusades adventure, although it can easily be used with any pre-4E version of D&D.

This product describe the free half of a city under siege by rampaging hordes. As such it is an adventuring locale, rather than an adventure. A city under siege is an interesting setting, however the modules supporting cast lack the depth I’d like to see in a product like this.

Duke Doofus had finally decided to reunite a large section of divided kingdoms and gather his troops to sally forth and put the petty princes to the sword. Off he went with his forces in to nearby lands. And his own were then promptly invaded by rampaging humanoids. He hurried back to find a good portion of his lands in ruin and his capitol city half under humanoid control: everything on the east bank of the river belonged to the invaders. He bolstered his troops on the western half of the city and set out to make things right. Thus the product focuses on a city caught in a single moment of time. The returning army has stopped the invaders on the eastern shore and the Duke is is now maneuvering to start reclaiming his lands. Meanwhile, the western half of the city is in a state of half-siege while the eastern half is overrun. This product describes the western half the next in the series describes the captured east.

This sort of product has to thrive on the environment it creates. A city is just a collection of people & places and the product needs to brings them life in order to be a good one. This module provides some background on the Duke, Duchess, the Sheriff, and a few of the Duchesses bodyguards and hangers-on. It also touches on the court mage, the thieves guild leaders, and a spy. That’s not much to work with in a lively city game. We get a brief description of a few locales outside of the city, and then a run down of the various quarters within the free portion of the city. This typically involves a paragraph or so for each of the seven or eight locations/businesses that are described in each of the sections. This really isn’t much, although it does focus on inns, smiths, and garrison locations, as those are likely to be of interest to the players. Most of these locations involve some little hook or another: smugglers, people looking the other way, and so on. Prices are inflated everywhere, when you can get what you want. Refugees are everywhere, the thieves guild is running a racket with the upper crust of society, and no one knows what the mage is up to. Two small adventures are located in the back. One is a kidnapping that is typical of many city adventures. Lots of intrigue involvement with the upper classes. The second is a straight forward raid across the river with a group of allied barbarians in order to destroy siege equipment. The second is interesting because it uses the C&C mass combat rules.

This is a difficult type of product, in terms of detail and scoping it. It captures a moment in time, so too much detail and and it will be wasted as the siege of the city is lifted or succeeds. Too little detail and the city doesn’t really feel like a city; Colorful characters is what a city thrives on. This product probably provides enough information to run the city in this moment of time. I wish there had been a few more details on the refugees and so on, however it the scope is limited to the cross-river raids, the kidnapping, and a couple of a major plot lines detailed in the book then things will probably come out ok. I do appreciate TLG giving us something different, a city under siege, and also providing a way to work in mass-combat rules. Both of those concepts are generally few & far between in the gaming world. It’s going to take some major fleshing out and work by the DM to add the detail I generally like to see in a city.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/56225/Castles–Crusades-DB4-Dro-Mandras?affiliate_id=1892600

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DB3 – Deeper Darkness

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Bryce Lynch

This is a Castles & Crusades adventure, however it can be used with any pre-4E version of D&D.

This is a continuation of module DB2 and adds three more levels on to that dungeon. The maps are very linear and the chambers tend to be a bit bland and crawling with creatures. Each level has a different theme: gargoyles, bugbears, and serpent-men.

This product adds three more levels on to the Crater of Umeshti dungeon , first seen in module DM2 – Crater of Umeshti. You may want to go back and reread that review to get the backstory on the Crater, and how the party came to be on the fourth level. The maps for this product are one again very linear. It’s really just a wide circle of hallways/rooms that surround the central pit of the crater. There are a few side passages here and there and an occasional interesting detail, such as a robe bridge across the crater on level five or stairway from level three to level four, however for the most part this is a linear crawl. Each level will be dealt with in turn and then the next will be explored. This is really a shame. This level has more openings on to the central pit than others, however the party is probably not high enough level yet to fly or have other means of hopping between openings. The concept of the dungeon is a good one however the cramped feelings of the maps and their linear design really work to prevent any meaningful explorative play. A true three-dimensional dungeon complex would be a nice thing to see. The maps are STILL too small, just one-third of one column. I’d love to see these as downloadable on the website; my eyes get fatigued just thinking about them.

Level the fourth is home to a large group of gargoyles. This levels has about 15 keyed locations and every room, save one or two, has a creature in it; invariably hostile. There are a few vermin to break up the gargoyles, and tomb complex with a few undead in it. The tomb has a puzzle to two to work out, including how to get in. This provides a nice change of pace the from “See Gargoyle. Kill Gargoyle” routine encountered in most of the chambers. There’s also a group of trapped adventurers that the party can rescue. It’s pretty lame that they have a wand of undetectable alignment. Yeah, I know, otherwise they’d get slaughtered right from the get go, probably. I just hate that kind of stuff. It’s a kind of forced economy and gimping the party. I’d rather see the other party have more complex motives and there be a better reason for the PC’s to cooperate. It’s too easy to just say they are scum slavers and have magic that conceals their intentions. Divination magic gets the short end of things from most groups; I like to see it pay off.

The fifth level is full bugbear and ogre outlaws. This level is another straight-forward 16 keyed location hack-fest. Every room but one has a monster encounter in it. There is a small trapped area and a fountain that can be repaired for a boon, however for the most part it’s just a really linear hack. There’s a rope-bridge across the central pit shaft which may end up as an exciting encounter. I suspect it was written to be that way. There’s also a foundry and a prison where the party may gain some allies. They are not very interesting as presented and will need some work to beef up their personalities.

The sixth level is one of the more interesting. It’s also very linear however only about half the chambers have creatures in them. Those are the Thune, a new monster race of extra-planer jerk-faces. They have a strong culture and lots of abilities. Kind of like a cross between the Drow (abilities), Yuan-ti (bloodlines) and Mind Flayers (planer, culture, evil.) There are a few new magic items to be encountered here. They are very interesting and provide some nice new effects. There is also a lot of strange stuff for the party to poke & prod. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really do anything, positive or negative, if the party interacts with it, making it just window dressing. Window dressing is good however a nice opportunity was lost in not presenting effects. There’s a section of rooms underwater in this area, and there is a little more than a column of rules inserted just before that section that explains underwater effects and how the parties abilities will interact with their underwater environment. Movement, temperature, spells, drowning, invisibility, being swept away, etc. This level is all too short.

This module, when taken with module DB2, appear to be attempting a mega-dungeon. There are a few problems with that. The maps are not big enough or interesting enough to truly get an exportation feel. The small cramped maps feel even smaller because of the lack of empty rooms; every room has something to slay. The limited mobility between levels and small level maps mean that there’s not really an opportunity for factions. There are some one-liner comments here and there in the text about hiring the party, however these are usually overshadowed by the “attacks immediately” type verbiage that is quite liberal. This limits factions. IN addition, the lack of a coordinated response to invaders, and “they use ambush tactics” is not addressing the issue, means more work for the DM ahead of time to work out who’s coming to who’s aid and when. The lack of exploration elements, empty rooms, traps, weird scenes and things to play with, makes the crawl a little one-dimensional.

You coulda been somebody kid. You coulda been a contender.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/28484/Castles–Crusades-DB3-Deeper-Darkness?affiliate_id=1892600

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DB2 – Crater of Umeshti

Posted on November 10, 2011 by Bryce Lynch

This is a Castles & Crusades adventure although it can easily be used with an pre-4E version of D&D.

This is a three-level dungeon, further levels are show in the next module in the series, that is a kobold hack-fest. It’s rather one-dimensional, in a semi-interesting location, and expands in to a undead filled lower level.

From time to time I like to offer advice to to the rulers of fantasy kingdoms and I’d like to take this opportunity to do that once again. Time and time again we see proud and storied civilizations destroyed by the gods. It’s time to learn from history kids: spread the love around a bit. If your civilization is at the height of it’s power then don’t go around breaking some young gods heart. It’s not going to end well. I t never does.

This adventure revolves around the Create of Umeshti. In days long past it was a shining city, until a giant rock was dropped on it by some jealous gods. Lunar based mass drivers: Effective and Green! A bit later some dwarves tunneled in and mined all the special iron. When the ore ran out they left and … other creatures moved in. Seriously? How many times have we seen this? Someone needs to start riding those little bearded boogers about this type of behavior. It’s like libertarians on midwest coal plants: yeah, it’s not hurting anyone right now, but what happens later when the frigging Balrog moves in? How many mountaintops have the dwarves removed in order to get at that precious ore? Do they clean up later? On nooooooo, of course not, there’s no funds left for that after they get slaughtered.

In this case we have a multi-level dungeon centered around a great crater in the earth. This product presents the exterior of the crater as well as the first three levels. The next module in the series appears to expand the crater with more levels. The primary tunnels in the levels were created by the dwarves before they left the complex, with some expansion by the current residents. The exterior of the crater is inhabited by kobolds; there are “dozens of caves” where they hide out and harass the party, and provide warning to the first level of the crater. The first two levels are full of kobolds as well.

The maps are relatively simple. There’s a central pit/shaft surrounded by worked dwarven tunnels and chambers. On the first two levels there are also some supplemental tunnels, kobold sized, that link some of the chambers. Access between the various levels is by an indestructible dwarven lift basket system. Generally access between two levels is on one side of the pit and access to the next level is on the other side, requiring that at least half the level be explored to get to the next level. I don’t usually complain or note layout unless there’s something very troubling. There is in this. The maps are presented as TINY. They take up about 1/3 of one column on a page. My tired old eyes need to bring the book up very close and squint to get the detail. Uncool. The basic layout is linear, in a circle around the central pit.

The first two levels are crawling with kobolds. Just about every room has some and it’s very probable that the PC’s will be attacked from the moment they get in the basket and descend. There are not really many tricks/traps, just one or two. The most interesting is a “don’t desecrate my temple” type of encounter. The best way to describe this is a as a relatively realistic monster lair. A couple of vermin, but mostly just kobolds, with a few traps and without any weird elements. The third level is the home to a necromancer. The map layout is mostly the same, a linear map in a circle shape. Again, mostly just a hack-fest with undead and tougher than normal kobolds. There are no really interesting elements.

It looks like this module is trying to be a megadungeon. Multiple levels, increasing difficulty between levels, and a page or so on how to restock the dungeon between adventurer forays all contribute to that feeling. It’s a little too crowded for my megadungeon tastes, and needs some more interesting maps so we get more of an exploration feel and less of a hack-fest feel. I don’t have a problem with a group slaughtering kobolds, however I would have preferred to see some additional notes on how the kobolds would respond. There’s a just a few brief sentences and they don’t really cover a coordinated response by the kobolds.

If I were to run this, and I may as a Meetup game, I would probably run it it in one of two ways. Given that there are nearly 100 kobolds on the first level, and they mostly have 2 HP each, I may run it as a dark comical adventure. DEX checks for slipping on entrails, buckets of blood from slaughtered kobolds EVERYWHERE, kobold eyes hanging off of swords, just a really ridiculous amount of gore, with the implicit, but not explicit, moral implications for the PC’s. The other way would be to make the kobolds some pretty heavy hit & run snipers with their missile weapons, making raids on the party and never staying anywhere to fight toe to toe. It would lend itself nicely to the first style of play, and maybe not so well to the second, just because of the sheer numbers of kobolds involved. Although, the chaos of a running battle, PC’s splitting up, and so on, would be very interesting to see as well.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/24507/Castles–Crusades-DB2-Crater-of-Umeshti?affiliate_id=1892600

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