By Daniel Harila Carlsen Mudnight Media Knave Levels 1-3
Crimson Creek, a scenic slope up a young mountain. Your adventure starts of in a familiar, almost homely fashion. There’s a hamlet, home to quirky villagers with mundane problems. But every trail you follow will take you deeper down into the meat of the mysteries, scandals, and unusual horrors hidden under the red moss.
This 24 page hex crawl presents seven hexes in a dark whimsyish environment of orphans and necromancers. It mostly hits the technical aspects, but is just weird for the sake of being weird, and shows, with low stakes being the result.
I watch some horror but I tend to not watch the ones with demons and ghosts. There is a tendency amongst those to have No Rules. The demon/ghost can do whatever they want whenever they want. Knowing this, it’s hard for to buy in and attach. Whats the point of attachment and/or caring if the game world rules just don’t make sense at all?
It should be obvious where I’m going with this. The technical aspects of this adventure are relatively decent. It’s laid out fine. The whitespace and bullets are mostly ok and the language, while strained at times, does an ok job. The pink/red shit that it uses as color is a little busy, in my opinion, but it’s not a no go. But the problem is one of tone and/or understanding what a D&D adventure is.
The adventure just does shit. “Bully Dregbuck, miserable ratcatcher. Spine replaced with an untuned accordion. Hates rats. Can’t sneak, stalk, or hunt. Got kicked out of the graverobbers guild. Followed by his one-eyed cat, Astrid. Carries rat-stabbing spear, traps, chewing tobacco, catnip.” So, dudes got an accordion for a spine. The adventure has told us, up front, that theres this dude who is replacing peoples parts with prosthetics. I think that word means something else though. An accordion for a spine seems somewhat different. As does a tub for a head. As does a wood stove for a stomach.
This is the world that this adventure takes place in. I don’t see how you can adventure here. In a world in which there is no logic AT ALL then all actions are as likely to succeed as fail. Just stab your friend to do damage to the monster, because I mean, there’s no indication that you should NOT, right?
And this fucking does this, over and over again. And it does it while also tossing in shit like “Grimspoon’s Home for Bastardly Children” as the name of an orphanage. That’s not bad. It’s like, I don’t know, Series of Unfortunate Events turned up to eleven. But then it also, in all seriousness, has a black bear in a point hat in the tavern, on stage, playing the bagpipes.
And this shit extends to most aspects of the adventure. “Garden: An overgrown shrubbery of
thorns (d4 damage). A small skeleton can be found deep inside” This is meaningless. It has no impact on the adventure. It’s just some bit of trivia thrown in. And a HUGE part of the adventure is this trivia.
If I were to write “A kklsdfkjhd is sdkljfhsdkjfh here.” then you’d, rightfully, be wondering what the fuck what was going on. You have no basis for running this. There is not context to help you figure this out. Ok, so, what about a human face, no longer attached, that now shits coins. It’s not a head. It’s explicitly a face. Not attached. Eating corpses and shitting coins. There’s just not enough here to do something with. “A printing block of flesh.” Uh, ok. “A grandfather clock that records the history of the universe.” Uh. … ok.
This is the standard nineteen hex flower. Seven are populated. It takes 24 pages to do that. The titular Crimson Creek makes no appearance in the adventure. And there is just nothing here that matters. The world rules don’t matter. The words looks like they were randomly generated and then pieced together in to an adventure. It’s Porky in Wackyland. There is a semblance of plot, with necro dude making monsters who have escaped, but that’s it.
Is this the kind of work you’d like to do?
This is $9 at DriveThru. There’s no preview. Else you wouldn’t buy it, silly goose!
Beneath the earth slumbers an ancient, sentient cavern system that feasts on souls. When it awakens, it lures its prey with a false village that appears out of nowhere—its streets filled with eerie, hollow-eyed villagers clinging to fragmented memories. Nothing in the village is real, yet everything conspires to drag adventurers into the depths.
This 27 page adventure presents a little village with some weird shit going on, as well as a cavern system with … twentish rooms in it? It’s one of those “the dungeon is a living being/monster” things, and one of the better ones at that. A kind of mashup of your adventure inside a giant purple worm with Body Snatchers. It’s hits everything it should, even if it is a bit tortured at times.
Well now, where to begin? This thing is a living dungeon. It travels underground. Once it settles down for a bit it kind of grows a fake village up above it, using it as a kind of angler fish bait to lure people in to the tunnels that go inside of it. Once there you get pod’d and become another villager that it can use to lure others in. The pod person village, as well as the internal beast journey, are both decent examples of their genres, and together they marry well.
The village here is interesting. More so than usual. Generally the village section of an adventure is just a preamble, a pretext for an investigation before you go hacking, when there is adventure in the village at all. In this case though I think the village may be decent in its own right and able to sustain a decent amount of play. What helps it is the support for the DM. There are a couple of mini-systems in play here. There’s a village mob and chase system, for when things inevitably go south. I’m happy to see this and is pretty much what I mean by supporting the DM. This is something that could pop up, more than likely, and helps the DM run this section. Everyone in the village is a pod person, also. And there’s this little mini-game where you can help them realize they are people. The more time you spend with them and so on, you can trigger an epiphany with them where they can become willing and capable allies. And this can have a real impact later on in the dungeon in some cases with, say, the priest helping a corrupted paladin regain their faith, in one of the more obvious examples.
The adventure does “an air of something not quite right” quite well. Giving you initial impressions of the village and then things you notice if you pay more attention. You hear a smiths anvil being used, in rhythmic strokes. But, then, the strokes NEVER stop. Or, the bustle of village life. That repeats every thirty minutes. You’ve got to pay attention. Or, shadowy form of “half pod’d” people that opera through windows and lurk in the general menagerie of homes. The people have those short little personality keywords that I think work so well, as well as some fears and wants … that can be surprisingly insightful and touching. For that priest, the fears are “the ground and what lies beneath it, and when the Referee deems it opportune will step out onto the church roof to stand precariously upon the end gable, highly visible.” and the wants are “to understand the aching loss in her heart where her faith once resonated.” This is pretty good shit. In another place there’s an adventurer hiding the hay in a barn, telling the party, if discovered, tha the villagers are weird and that they are out to get them all, hes been hiding from the villagers. He, also, is a pod person. For each of them also has a ploy, a way, a quest, something to hook the party, to get them to travel in to the tunnels to the down below. At which point, in 1d4 rounds, the villagers brick the entrance closed after the party is in. Woah! Nice! Really one of the better pod person villages, giving the resources you need to support all aspects of play, from hacking to personal development.
Transitioning in to the dungeons … things get weird. There’s both some “traditional caverns” stuff as well as some deep shafts to explore to get to other places. Inside we’ve got a decent assortment of things: the cancer room, the pod people souls room, the giant tapeworm room, the village of people living in the stomach. Another room has beetles literally covering ALL of the surfaces … tread carefully or summon the momma beetle. But, also, harvest some greek fire from the puddles/slime? There’s a decent variety of spelunking, talking, stabbing and so on. Lots of things to exploit in a “neutral environment” kind of way. We’ve got an ecosystem here, The biome so to speak, and even the 600 year old naga full of loot has a role to play as the caterpillar giving out sage like wisdom, even if he has no mushroom or hookah.
Formatting is great. There’s a nice combination of shading, offsets, whitespace, bullets, and text combining to help draw the attention where it needs to go. A monster summary sheet and the “always on” effects of the dungeon placed on the map for easy reference.
The language can also be a bit tortured at times. I get what Phil is trying to do, but it just feels belaboured at points. The village, at first glance “A score of thatched houses, shabby but stout, clustered together like dullards waiting to be yelled at” I think not. And there’s a decent amount of this strained effort in the descriptions. The thesaurus was consulted perhaps a bit much. But then you’ll get something like this in a hook “Blitzfark the schoolmaster is universally acknowledged as an vainglorious fraud, but he insists the divining rod he stole from a …” Not bad (and, again, with the charlatan makes right.) Or, in the dungeon, the mob “Naked, moist, some faces familiar, grub-pale, they hurl poison cysts filled with milky lymphatic fluid before closing with bone spars to subdue and drag victims to pods.” There’s an image for you! It’s not that you cant use a $10 word, but the prevalence of it and the the way they seem forced really stand out.
I might note, also, that there is a “Random village occurrence” table that I’m not sure what to make of. It’s a little random and disconnected from the adventure. If you squint hard then there are digestive juices and the like causing things, as well as the “conjured villager” angle. But, also, it feels it just doesn’t hit well. You can’t really do something with the villagers, I guess, since they are all controlled but the beast? So it has to be other weird things? They just feel like window dressing instead of things to really heighten paranoia or drive investigation or cause … questioning of contrasting beliefs in the players heads?
So, a little bit of tortured writing A few things that don’t hit well. But, generally, a decent adventure that looks to do what it does in an effortless way (except for that thesaurus.) It doesn’t feel forced. This is a great first effort. Perhaps a little journeyman, but I’ll take it.
This is $5 at DriveThru. The preview is nine pages which, along with the embedded pages in the description, give a great account of how things are organized and described. A great preview!
Sages assume Shodredh Dhachod, the Gringling Lich who conceived and constructed Zjelwyin Fall, must rest inside, dreaming his sidereal dream. But Dhachod’s wards are such that knowledge of the Fall’s location and trajectory are forgotten before they can be put to paper; so it hurtles unwatched, a spindle of otherworldly beauty, a ruby comet tracing the limits of the Astral Plane.
This 52 page adventure uses about twelve pages to describe seven set piece puzzle rooms in a Lich lair on the astral plane. It manages a fine level 2-3 dungeon in a non-traditional environment and shows, I would assert, the power of 1e done right by someone who understand it.
Mr Lich has devised a lair on the astral plane in which only folks less than 4HD can enter. This is a rather interesting way to construct something otherworldly … it’s an astral dungeon! Not only do you get the exoticism of the location, but it also places limits on the infinite ingenuity that a well seasoned group of players can bring to a puzzle dungeon. Husoo remarks that the origins are his experienced players needing something from the liches lair, but, unable to enter, use some low levels to go get it for them, outfitting them with a few magic items and gear Nystul’d up to survive the astral transition. There’s no real reason why this has to be on the astral plane, magic being magic, but it makes a lot of sense in that context.
This is a puzzle dungeon. After a “short” astral journey (DM makes up to 24 wandering monster checks … that, thankfully, Huso has provided some set creature encounters for) the party ends up in room two of a puzzle dungeon. Solve the puzzle in each of six rooms and you get to room seven, the lichs lair, where he lies dreaming. You’ve got a few rounds to grab all the loot you can while avoiding falling to Pandemonium, until you decide to dump out floor trapdoor. Unless you wake the lich, in which case, game over.
Puzzle dungeon isn’t quite right and my characterization of it as such is not quite fair. Set piece dungeon might be better, but, also, that implies centerpiece combats, which tis doesn’t have. You enter a room, do a thing to get to the exit, or fail at it and go back outside to enter again. Set piece dungeons feel like combats to me. Puzzle dungeons to me imply the environment of those boring old challenge dungeons with blank grey walls and a potion on a pedestal. These, however, are complex and well integrated rooms, with a theming of time and sometimes space. It all feels right to me.
You’re going to be a glass dome like room. Outside the dome is chaos. Inside is usually some form of red sand, blowing, drifting or some such. You must do something, frequently trying to get somewhere in the dome, avoiding some obvious sand issue (blowing sand area, sand falling through hourglass hole area, etc) and facing some creature obstacle, either as a matter of course or as a local fail state. It feels like a complete picture.
“PCs arrive in a staggering glass dome. They are ranged (at positions A) around a gleaming silver ledge that encircles and overlooks an expanse of red sand some ten feet below. The dunes in this crimson pit transition to blue at the center, where they collapse into a horrifying central funnel. The glass dome keeps a churning but beautiful storm of red cosmic dust at bay.” Red generally signifying bad/go backwards and blue success/go forward to the next room. In this case you’ve got some Migo hanging out in some pods on the ledge opposite the party and a dune walker running about inside the sands. There’s also a little bit of treasure on a dead b ody on a ledge. Dump your ass in to the blue sand hole. Avoid waking the migo. There’s treasure on the balcony, at a nearby spot, and a dune walker almost directly under it. Thus going to the obvious treasure gets you it, and a clue, but then immediately jumping to the sand from there gets you the dune walker. Surveying your environment may walk you over the hanging migo, thus waking them. This is a well constructed room. They all are.
Husos descriptions are a little oblique, with a baroque kind of structuring of the phrasing. Generally fine but perhaps not the most readily received by the cortex. “A platinum knife with skull pommel and diamond settings” or “jeweled footmans flail” being typical treasure descriptions. One of the astra encounters is solid enough that I’ll use it as an example “A slender man with ash-white flesh floats in lotus position. Gray robes curl kelp-like around his body while a pale gemstone flashes, blue facets gathering light at the center of his forehead. His pupiless eyes are set on the elusive Astral brilliance.” A Gith! A GREAT description of a Gith. It’s a dude. It plays up the aesthetic thing. A monster description that stays grounded. I love a good zombie description that portrays it as a person, the horror of the walking dead, instead of just something to stab. Anyway, descriptions are fine, if a bit tortured and/or cumbersome.
The text overall though is a bit strained. Huso has done wonders, it would seem, in keeping things in check from what I REMEMBER of Night Wolf. Things FEEL tighter here, even though the rooms run longer. (Three pages for one of them.) Decent formatting keeps things together though, with easily located sections in a general logical order. He is a little too explainy for my tastes, even beyond the necessary greater length that rooms like this must dictate. And there are certainly places in the text where another pass through would help tighten things up, both literally and figuratively. The migo presence gets tacked on to almost the end of that sand room. “Their worrisome forms can be seen from the ledge’s northern circuit but they will only take flight if molested or if the ledge directly above them (at M) is walked on” Seems like that is something to mention in the initial description of the room. And that kind of “dump in pertinent information at a far later place” is not uncommon here. He also gets a bit conversations a bit too frequently with phrasing like “Oh course the lich …” and so on, padding things out in places in which they should be tightened up.
There is the issue of a split party, which can happen in several places. Going down the funnel one at a time will almost certainly be a disaster, at least for the poor DM trying to run an engaging game. And there are places where I could NOT figure things out. “PCs who re-enter the sand take more dmg and go again to location A.” I don’t think they do? I can’t find any reference to that?
The rooms here are well constructed. These are not throw away puzzles. This is the epitome of a dungeon for experienced PLAYERS, at low levels. I wish things were different here and there, making more sense, a little tighter, descriptions a little less cumbersomely evocative. Seven rooms? With an overland? Huso claims three sessions out of this, and I believe him. But it’s a GREAT work. Made all the better by what is by far the best of Daniele Valeriani art on the cover, which for some reason reminds me of Klimt.
The PDF is $18, with hardcopies also available through Lulu. I don’t see previews anywhere. I do like a good preview that helps me make a purchasing decision where $18 PDF’s are concerned.
By Danilo Frontani Hellwinter Forge of Wonders OSE Levels 2-4
Until two hundred years ago, Brightmoore Manor stood as a beacon of splendour and harmony. It was home to the noble Lord Faulken Brightmoore, his enchanting elven wife Lady Narielle, and their children. But envy and fear of mortality twisted Lord Faulken’s heart, leading him toward forbidden magic and unspeakable sacrifice. Now, the manor is a shadow of its former glory, shrouded in a curse. Somewhere beneath its decaying halls lies the Orb of Souls, a malevolent artefact that feeds on life itself. The adventurers are the final piece of this haunting tale. Can they unravel the secrets of Brightmoore Manor, break the curse, and end Faulken’s ritual before his ultimate ascension — or will they, too, be consumed by the darkness within? Enter the manor, uncover its horrors, and face the price of immortality!
This 36 page adventure uses about twelve pages to describe 22 rooms in a ruined manor house. It’s going for a Spooky Haunted House vibe. The writing and interactivity are quite poor though and it comes off as a forced effort.
I am clearly missing some piece of pop culture knowledge, either in film or fiction. The large number of adventures featuring some person in an abandoned manor collecting souls/making sacrifices towards some demonic-laughter-end can only mean that there is some famous book or Hammer film that I never caught on to. In any event, this this another in that genre. Old decrepit mansion and 99 people need to die inside of it and 95 have died when the party shows up.
There are a couple of the usual things to talk about with this, but before I do that I want to focus on one of the hooks. I know that a decent number of people don’t care about them, but, also, I want to use one of the adventure hooks as a note on human behaviour and the suspension of disbelief/verisimilitude. One of the hooks here has the region being abandoned and settlers moving back in to the area. Everyone knows about the house but “no one has yet dared approach it.” This is not human nature. Everyone has dared approach it. _I_ would approach it. Jewels? Gold coins? And that’s in a world without magic carpets and djinni in lamps running around. A draft adventure I saw once has villagers knowing that their kids were in an abandoned house, and yet they hired the party to go in. Nope. That’s not human nature. They mob up and go in. Maybe a bunch of them get killed, but they mob up and go in after their kids. This outright blatant ignoring of the way humans work is So distracting in an adventure. Sure, we all want to play D&D tonight so we ignore it. But the word verisimilitude runs around the RPG circles, and the OSR circles in particular, so much for a reason. It puts the players in the game in a play that is invaluable. Getting the players investment, instead of the characters, is so much more valuable to a rewarding game.
Ok, so, old manor house. Doors slam shut and lock behind you when you enter. And, also “All the doors and windows leading outside are magically locked and impossible to open or pick.” So, we’re off to a strong start here. Also, no mention of burning the place down. Not that any of that really matters, because thee’s no description of the manor as you approach. You looking for a backdoor? A veranda? Widows walk? Old well nearby? How about ANY description of the house AT ALL from the exterior? Nope. We just start out on room one. I find it hard to believe that this was ever playtested; those notes would HAVE to come back.
A feature of the adventure is the clock in the first room. It counts the souls, on its way to 99 and the looming evil about to be unleashed. A centerpiece of the adventure with a section all its own, we get this magnificent description of the adventure cornerstone “7’ tall, is made of wood except for its single hand, crafted from an unrecognisable black metal.” Revel in the opulence of its description! Now that’s what I call music! But, let us not cherry pick! “As soon as the last PC crosses the threshold, the heavy
entrance door slams shut behind them. From this moment on, the curse of the Orb of Souls prevents the adventurers from leaving the house. There is no light within the manor. Frescoes depicting rural scenes adorn the walls. Two curved staircases lead to a balcony on the upper door. To the east and west are two large doors. Between the staircases stands an enormous clock. Two skeletons are seated, slumped against the wall near the entrance door“ The skeleton thing isn’t bad. Slumped is a good word. The rest of the description though is just a dry factual description of the room that fails to give us the vibe that the adventure is so desperate to communicate: creepy haunted house.
The houses interactivity falls in to two categories. Either something creepy happens or you need to stab something. There is VERY little other than that. A rooms window is dirty ”: If the PCs attempt to clean it, the face of a young human girl appears for a brief moment.” I’m going to excuse the if/then clause, but I still think it should be rewritten to remove it. Anyway, that effect is irrelevant. Its just meant to be creepy. And so, so many of the encounters are just that. “Bed: Finely crafted; the mattress appears sagged, as though someone is resting upon it. When the PCs move away from the bed, they hear a faint, mournful whisper saying: «Free me!».” Sure thing buddy.
In another room the floorboards are weak! “If they fail, they must save vs paralysis when moving through the room; on a fail, the oor collapses under their feet, and they can’t move for 1 round” Yeah, You don’t actually fall through or anything. I note that in Strahd, in the appendix starting adventure, my kids used their crowbars to go through the floor to get to the hidden basement instead of going all the way to the fucking railroad attic to get there. In another place, the kitchen, there’s a sink. If a “PC dips a hand in the water, a skeletal arm grabs it and begins to pull it in, trying to drown them.” I don’t even know how that works. The sink is … eight feet deep? Four feet deep? I mean, good energy here. Creepy. But how the fuck does that work with a kitchen sink?
I could go on and on with the irrelevance of the creepy stuff, but let’s cover combat. I’m pretty sure everything here is undead, as I recall. Almost all 1 HD with some 2 HD scattered in. If the baddie wakes up he’s 7 HD, so that a TPK, I hope four people don’t die inside the house before then. Anyway, 1 HD and 2HD undead. Do we all see the problem? What’s our level range again? Two to four? That an auto-turn at level 2 for 1 HD and and auto for ones and twos at level three, the midrange points. I swear to fucking god, it’s like people have never played D&D before.
So, no good descriptions. A mostly lack of interactivity beyond stabbing. The stabbing is vulnerable to clericing. Gimping the party and no real effort in creating a holistic environment to adventure in. But, hey, go hard on those production values, yeah? That’s a pass.
By Steve Gilman Sundered Blade Games S&W Levels 1-3
Long ago, the kingdom of Aranure was lost in a war against the minions of Malak, the demon lord of hate. Pilgrims have recently repopulated this land in hopes of finding peace and an easier way of life. A farmer has gone missing from the village of Rockcrest, and heroes are needed to answer the call!
This twenty page adventure details a dungeon with nine rooms. It is the old wound my lord, full of loose writing in a conversational manner and full of backstory with nothing really going on except stabbing things. The bare basics, stretched out.
Ah, the days of old. When a ten year old adventure was new, and not hiding out on my bookmarks list. In between Stalker2, I’m cleaning things up in celebration of an upcoming anniversary. And this old gem fell out of my todo’s.
Let’s see here, we’re starting out on page five, always a good sign, with the village description. It’s your typical village. Nothing special. At this point you could just list businesses and their owners names, along with maybe a quirk, all Ready Ref Sheet style. It would certainly be much better than what we have here. A page of text. A page out of text out of any novel. Just words in some paragraphs. No attempt at reference material at all. Just dig through to find whatever you want.
The adventure has a farmer go missing. His wife says he was watching little creatures go in and out of an old mine. Uh huh. Inside we find goblins, hobgoblins, and giant rats. And, of course, the farmer still alive. Can’t be heroes without rescuing someone, yes? Bad form to have the goblins stopping his brains out with spoons while he’s still alive. They would make them demon worshippers or something. Oh. Wait. They ARE demon worshippers in this adventure? Frankly, I think I would make a MUCH better demon worshipper than 99.9% of the demon worshippers I see in these adventures. I’m a think outside the box kind of guy. You think your demon lord wants some morons worshipping him, bestowing power upon, or you think he wants the dude who isscopping out still living brains with a spoon?
Anyway, nine rooms in the dungeon, about a third or so empty. Oh, wait, before I get to hat, there are some wilderness encounters. You knowhow I love those, right? Here’s the DM notes for one f them. This is the complete notes, I’m not cherry picking here. “Long ago, this graveyard was a resting place for the early people of Aranure. Through many years of disuse, the graveyard has become overgrown, and something sinister has awoken the dead here. The skeletons here are of the long dead, but the zombies, with their flesh still intact, must have been more recent deaths.” Yup, just getting attacked by skeletons and zombies. Nothing more. With a lot of padded out text. Nothing more. Nothing evocative. Nothinginteresting about the combat,
And the dungeon is the same way. Worse? Rooms have monsters, right? Not according to the read-aloud. So, maybe we can forgive that. The read-aloud in one room concentrates on some statues in the room. And then the DM test tells us all about the status And ,then, at the very bottom, that there are, like eight goblins and four giant rats in the rooms as guards. NO! NO! No! NO! No! No! We put the most important things first. That might be the status, that the th party see, but then it’s almost certainly the screaming goblin hoard. Yes? “This room was once a dining hall, but all that remains of the old furniture is some rotted and broken wood.” Then how do we know it’s a dining hall? HThta’s read-aloud, if memory serves me correctly. Why is it a dining hall?
There is nothing here but combat, It’s the goblin caves from B2, expanded to twenty pages. Except with WAYYYY less treasure. Good luck leveling. Also, the titular shrine, the dungeon, is one room with some chaos goblins in it. Have fun.
This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $2. The preview is five pages and shows you the town. Enjoy that.
On the arctic frontier, at the border between the mountains and the wastes beyond, looms Castle Thar-Gannon. For centuries, the Skull God ruled his domain from his blackened throne. But 20 years have passed since the routing of his armies, and now the castle lies abandoned with riches unclaimed. Yet, death still lurks in the shadows of the ruins. An ancient doom arises from the depths of this place…
This 482 work of hubris describes a city, wilderness hex crawl, and five dungeons in the frozen north, all working towards an end-of-the-world adventure path. Excellent worldbuilding, pretty decent hexes, and absolutely no understanding beyond a 3e level of what an adventure is, in design or formatting.
I’ve been reading this and ruminating on it for a week now [ed: a week and a half now.] I’m not sure what to think. Well, no, I do know what to think: there’s no way in fucking hell I’d ever run this and only a masochist would read this for fun. But the worldbuilding is there and it’s got some interesting parts to it.
We’re gonna ignore the lengthy backstory for the most part. There’s this void-worm thing devouring the world, evil sorcerer king who rules the land goes away, settlers move in. Ultimately this appears to be a kind of adventure path. The adventures all kind of lead to each other and its all leading to this sorcerer king reappearing and the void worm thingy in volume three, I suspect. To that end we’ve got a city homebase described, a bunch of wilderness rules/tables, a hex crawl, and about six interconnected dungeons that get to level four or five by the end. And that’s all gonna take FIVE. HUNDRED. PAGES.
I don’t know these people. But they put out FIVE HUNDRED PAGES. I could never do that. They put it out in a way that looks like an adventure. For some definition of “layout” and “editing”. Those things were done to a level that, at first glance, seems chill. I’m going to be very critical of this thing. But, the folks involved did a professional job on it, for some definition of that word. Just not the “Adventure” definition of it.
The worldbuilding here is great. I mostly ignored the lengthy backstory, so I didn’t pick it up from there. But the individual locations and encounters, those do have a way of building on each other. There are elements of mystery and hinting at things in them that is excellent. It leads to wonder and be excited. (This is complimented, in places, by the art. There are some pieces, at times, that do a great job at giving a sense of scale. Cyclopean, the way you imagine Moria but few can capture. It’s a small percentage of the art, but those pieces are GREAT.)
This penchant for worldbuilding is interesting. I wondered frequently if this was an over-investment in, perhaps, a home campaign. Whatever the case, the worldbuilding and the hex crawl combine to produce some stellar outcomes. If you think about it a bit, the qualities overlap a lot. You’re trying to build something interesting, a citation, in a hex crawl encounter. And yet you need to keep it somewhat short; you’re doing scores of them in a typical hex crawl, at a minimum. And the hex crawl here is memorable because of that, the combination of worldbuilding, and its associated flavor for real and hinted at, and the quickness of the hit and ability of the DM to then riff off of it.
“The domed Shrine of Taggarik looms over the desolate mountain wastes like a tomb. This structure of ice and stone is carved into the side of a windswept peak. Its entrance archway has been marked with two square pillars etched in swirling symbols.” Inside is a giant ice throne with a cyclopean figure seated on it, surrounded by trophies. “They are both a source of incredible pride and agonizing shame.” Saumen Kar. So, demon, pride and shame, goes on benders sometimes and terrorizes the countryside till he chills out. Talks to the party a bit probably.Some of the trophies are malnourished young children frozen in ice.It seems one of this favorite pasttmie is tormenting a nearby village full of orphans. He killed at their parents. They worship him for food and sacrifice of their number to him. It’s all they know, there is no other worldview for them (I’m describing two hexes here, the demon shrine dome and the orphan village.) Escape? The wilderness outside has the 12 Black Wolves of the Garngat. Do I know what that is? No, but it sounds fucking awesome, yeah?! And I’m leaving a decent amount of awesome shit out!
Also, the demon is fifteen hit dice. Also, JUST the demon dome, and it’s one room, go on for two pages. His stat block takes up a column. Did I mentioned the three eight HD golems? Levels 1-4! The demon, the nearby village, there are situation here. And that’s what a hex crawl should be. And they are flavourful as all fuck. But the designer CANNOT shut his fucking mouth. This is one of the more critical flaws in the adventure. Dude will NOT shut up. I am not wading through three pages of text to run a fucking encounter. NO ONE is going to do that. This this five hundred page adventure is something that get read, and might get purchased, but will not get played. Is that what the designer really wanted? Adventure writing is technical writing. You need to communicate just enough. You need to inspire the DM to take what you’ve written and run with it. But it needs to be terse, so they can scan it at the table and run it. You can’t run a fucking encounter if you have to stop the game for ten minutes to read it first. The phone come out. The players lose interest. Write terse. Write evocatively. Leverage the fact you’re got a DM to riff on what you’ve them. Specificity, not detail. Hint at backstory. Leave room for wonder. That adds so much to mystery and the flavour of a game. But this ENDLESS droning on and on … Man, a quick hit on how to run an NPC that the party meets can last a column.
The books credits imply that a lengthy cutting of text was involved. It wasn’t enough. And the layout and formatting were NOT up to the task of managing such a huge word count. Our starting city a fucking mess. It is close to being a generic-ville (and, in fact, I’d say the theme of the Northlands is generally lost, in spite of lengthy sections on terrain, weather, and the natives. It just doesn’t come through.) There are some brief moments in the town that are ok. The gate guards of the “wealthy” gate turning people away to other gates. A weird obsession with hookers appearing throughout. (I think maybe every word on that 1e DMG table was used here?) But there IS the kind of specificity, in places, that cement a locale and help bring it to life. It’s just surrounded by a MASSIVE glut of words that obfuscates anything interesting. And forget about finding anything during play. Your ability to locate a specific tavern or, say, a tavern in general, is going to be close to nill. It’s just a stream of text with very little overriding organization behind it and WAY too many words for each item.
As for the first adventure, “An innovative feature of this mega-adventure is the step-by-step character creation process packed into the starter quest’s beginning.” *GROAN* Ok, sure, but I can live with that. WHat’s harder to live with the generic “throw in every trope possible” for this first adventure. A pickpocket chase?! A guard captain with a job?! A LONG ass tavern section? “The heroes awaken next morning, eat breakfast at the inn—eggs, goat’s milk, and a hot helping of caribou sausages—and get ready to explore. It is an overcast day outside without rain” *groan* “When ready to continue, read or paraphrase the following text aloud to your players:” The designer, editor, and layout never saw a word or turn of phrase they didn’t think to include in the adventure. This first one is just tropes and has none of the characteristic flavour found in other sections. You do get to tell the guard captain to put a homeless kid to death though. Also, kid has 95gp and a full weeks worth of food costs 5gp, so …
Anyway, in the middle fof this mess of a third adventure, here’s some typical text “Second Wave. Zarcand expends his word of bones ability to summon 4 loam gauntsA. The gaunts burst out from under the muddy road pavers and rise from the earth. This creates muddy groundC hazards in their wake. The battlefield is getting treacherous! Zarcand directs the undead to attack the amulet wearer and his allies. The gaunts claw at heroes locked in melee and loam lob everyone else” The battlefield is getting treacherous! And you can see from this an emphasis on these battlefield tactics. Terrain restrictions. Long stat blocks. MOSTLY combat. This is 3e. More than a few of the rooms have “It attacks!”, as the dungeon exists only for combat, it seems.
The first dungeon is this weird death trap puzzle. It’s got a nigh unstoppable enemy and poison gas at the end, so you work your way through this tomb and then run for freedom. Then there’s this raid on a slavers stronghold, with two islands and “The Guzzler”, a literally unkillable enemy on the second one. The monster as a muzzle, so to speak, or obstacle. There’s a barrow that’s pretty simple and then a lighthouse like thing, a tower. The first, in particular, is pretty overwrought with text with things settling down a bit in the others, but, still, I don’t know how I would run slavers island assault as written. There’s some REALLY good details in places, like grasping hands coming out of a door, but it ALL runs on for far too long. And, to no good end. It’s not the worldbuilding, its the conversational tone. Almost every undead is a generic one with no soul to them. That’s really too bad. It’s just there to stab.
This is clearly a heartbreaker. I suspect volume two, already out, is more of the same. EXCELLENT worldbuilding. But a 3e style of dungeon and, more than that, the dungeon AS a puzzle, as a whole. That’s a little too perfunctory for me. There’s a slavish devotion to format/layout even where it doesn’t make sense. WAY too many words, three paragraphs are used when two sentences would be much better. This IS a real adventure, but I don’t see how you can run it without a stupid amount of prep. And I can buy something else, far cheaper, that will be far easier to run and even more fun.
This is $35 at DriveThru. The preview is nineteen pages. It shows you nothing of the dungeons, or the town, so you’ll have no way of figuring out if the content is for you. Just that someone paid for layout.
By Corey Ryan Walden Self Published OSR Levels 1-3
Blackened esoteric obelisks, henceforth known among most folk as ‘The Yore Standing Stones’, dot a strangely unnatural hill. The runes are inscribed with runic scripting, but it is what looms below the forlorn hill that should chill any good serf to the bone.
This twelve page adventure presents a few hexes as well as a small dungeon with eleven rooms. It reeks of that od&d charm from when things had not yet been homogenized. Light on treasure, heavy on frameworks over content, it does know the meaning of the words ‘specificity.’ I was poking through the depths of my bookmarks and found this hanging out where it shouldn’t be, next to Mary Ellis and Volante. Only in my head does a nine year old product not count as “old stuff.”
This is, I think, a hex crawl. With three hexes. I THINK you start out in a small town. The adventure just launches in with a description of hex one, and it has a small town in it. Well, ok, the hexes have A LOT of shit in them. If the art shows four terrain types then there will be at least four different things int he hex. Our town hex has a fetid swamp full of frogmen and degenerate humans, the town, the western wood, and the badlands full of hillfolk. Also, the fucking wilderness, man! The fucking wilderness is DEADLY. Like 1-3 nixies or 1d6+1 frogmen deadly. Anyway, I’m jumping around a lot. In town you learn of Rolff of Haris “… wanted for murder, rape and thievery, being a particularly bad sort. Rolf may be identified as being without one ear and possessing three absent fingers from his left hand. He was last seen heading west into the forest. There is a half crown reward (5gp) for his immediate capture.” I love this. That’s fucking specificity. A half crown. Three fingers and one ear … dudes had a life. And then we throw in the cute little “a particularly bad sort.” Later on, in the hex with the local castle in it, we find Rolf on the wandering table for the hex “Rolf of Haris will be hiding in the woods weeping. He has a dagger but fights like a serf.” Fucking a man! That’s great! Whatcha gonna do now about ol Rolfy?
The town is full of shepherds. “Knights from nearby Zhairmont are oft located a few miles up the road in a lodge where the occasional men-at-arms may be hired for an …” Of course they are. They aren’t hanging out at the serf village. They are out at the hunting lodge with their fellows! Later, in the castle hex, they ride out to meet you and challenge you to a joust … what matters is not if you win but if you accept and are a good sport. Then they might charge you with finding, in a nearby cave “A creature known as ‘Leatherman’ inhabits the cave. Leatherman fights as an ogre.” The Leatherman. Not an Ogre. A creature known as the Leatherman. This is 100% what I mean when I talk about named creatures. I loathe the abstraction and genericism of excitement and adventure. This sure as fuck ain’t doing that. It drips with that specificity and verisimilitude. “A shabby trails runs through town.” Of course it fucking does, it’s a village of sheepherds! And it’s full of mud and sheepshit.”
Elsewhere we get a ghoul in the forest wanderers, “seemingly dead.” Lots of adventures try this, especially with skeletons. But, finding a body in the woods? That’s something that you might expect. And THEN it comes to life. In the dungeon there’s a lake. “The Carrion Crawler often swims within the lake, and is incredibly creepy, startling all but the most perceptive” It’s almost, like, the environment was imagined first and then someone found a D&D book and found the best thing that fits. Which is what the fucking game SHOULD be like. “Any gold or silver placed within the lake turns in to platinum.” Fantasy.
Oh, also, there’s a cult in the dungeon. It’s a druid and two berserkers. They worship the crawler. Cause they crazy. Also, he knows sleep! There’s a fucking TPK in the making! Wow!
Okok, two more then I stop. “Interlopers in the wood may discover an unnatural hillock atop which dreadful black obelisks, inscribed with runic scripts, are perched. A grassy dike runs around the centre with an earthen ramp to bridge the still-deep gulf. A lone statue of a loathsome being can be found among the stones.” A dyke. Just like ALL obelisks have. But, also, one room in the dungeon has “a dozen living elephant trunks along the southern end of the room” Yup. Living elephant trunks. You can reach inside of them for goodies … if you dare!
This thing is rampant with imagination. It delights in it. Single column. More of a framework than an adventure. Deadly the way only a true “who gives a fuck” old school wilderness can be. I can’t recommend it. It’s just too .. loose. It needs just a bit more structure to it. But when this thing is hitting it is hitting hard. The definition of that terse, evocative shit I go on and on about. Situations. Imagination without books to get in the wya.
By Nickolas Zachary Brown Five Cataclysms Five Cataclysms Level ... 5? 8?
The carcass of a dead city is to many, a ruin. But to others, it is an opportunity. Where tens of thousands of still bodies lay, necromancers and their ilk shall flock. This is the way of things. The perimeter of this city, like many of the great cities of old, has a wall. Atop this wall are two towers. Day and night, an ominous green glow emanates from the larger tower, where an undead animator toils away, creating horrors for its master.
This fourteen page adventure is a twenty five room hack in a two-tower gatehouse full of undead. A little wit, a straightforward style, some interesting things to stab … for what it is it’s doing a decent job.
I do complain about hacks, don’t I? I think this falls in to the same category as how I treat tropes. And, I suppose, a hack is a trope in D&D-landia. A throw-away isn’t going to land with me, but if you put your heart in to it and really make it your own then I’m probably down. For all of the “Bryce doesn’t like X” shit, I think I’m really quite generous. Just make it not terrible, and I don’t really care how you go about doing that.
So, “A local cleric was able to interrogate the fallen undead [abducting people from their beds], who revealed to him thus: A lich named ‘Father’ has made the southern gate-fort its lair, and is collecting bodies for its evil work” I could bitch a lot about this. The skeleton knows he’s a lich? The cleric does? “Evil work”? Is that what old skelly said? I’m much more amenable to Widow Agnes, dead a year now, telling the tale, and so on. You want some specificity, some color. That’s what being a designer is, adding those boots that bring the thing to life. Sure, the DM has to run with it, but you need to give the DM something to run with, something to get the ol brain juices going. And in a generic vs specific battle it’s hard to see how the generic could win.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the town militia and local soldiery is always busy in one of these adventures. And the local pretext here for this adventure is a great example of a couple of principals. “The local militia has their hands full with stirge mating season in full-swing, thus the Mayor has implored the adventuring population to …“ There’s some absurdity here, at just the right time. It’s the pretext to get the party moving, and we all know it, so let’s hype it up a bit. It more than grounds the DM in some things to introduce as vignettes in the parties village journey, imagine the possibilities or stirge suits and stirge nets and giant DDT vats and so on! We’re playing D&D tonight and the DM has introduced a pretext and ir running with it, acting like its serious. I’m down! A little silly at the start can help to do this. Yes, the villagers are idiots. Of course they are. That’s why you’re here.
The map here is, well … It’s a set of gates with a tower on each side and a couple of bridges across to each other. You go up a flight in one tower and then over to the other side and then up to the other side and so on. This gives a linear progression to things, as you journey from the ground to the top of the tower and the big green crystal sphere on top. There’s a side room or three hanging off of each level as well, but it’s mostly linear.
I don’t know where to go from here. Descriptions are kept terse but in an interesting way. “A blackened blood smear runs across the stone floor and up the stairs. A lever is attached to the eastern wall. The opposite north gate has also been smashed open, long ago.” or “Human corpses, stacked like logs, the stack reaching chest height. Stripped of all gear & equipment, there must be at least 40 corpses here. The most common cause of death is a slashed throat” I can quibble with an over-reveal or aside in these, but they are not terrible descriptions. And, to the adventures credit, it generally understands that the most important thing should come first. If the door to the room is trapped then thats the first thing in the room description. Major features comes before minor ones, and so on. And then, when needed, a cross-reference comes in to play, noting, for example, at the entrance, that the skels in room sixteen fire down on the characters if they draw attention to themselves … instead of putting that information in room sixteen.
And our creatures. Oh my. For a hack … Well, there’s a decent assortment of 1HD and 2HD skeletons. No problem. One group chucks a barrel down the stairs at you. And what does a necromancer do with their extra blood? “BLOOD OOZE – Ah, what to do with this extra blood? Put it in a barrel and animate it, of course.” Again, that sly little wit. Or, the Weakened Wight “Scrawny. He’s got a goblet,for reasons unknown” Well, yes, he should have one, obviously. That makes him more wightlike. Did I mention the hair monster? “Attacks by shoving itself down the target’s throat, suffocating them. It becomes more and more difficult to get it out.” There are also an assortment of non-traditional skeletons, including a giant spider with a max full of sharks teeth, the hand of a true giant and what feels like an endless variety. Even the wight (above) and a shadow gets little bit of a special treatment beyond the mere ordinary book thing. And then, sometimes, it goes and does this “12 x UNDEAD MONKEY – A barrel full of monkeys! Sort of. They’re vicious” A bridge too far!
I’m not mad at this. If I wanted an assault mission I’d be happy with this. It’s got enough going on with its hack to elevate it beyond the normal ones. The descriptions are interesting, the treasure tries a little bit, the monsters are horrific. It’s not bad.
This is $5 at DriveThru. The preview is six pages. You get to see the first three rooms on the last page. SO, it’s an ok preview.
By Thom Wilson ThrowiGames D&D? No. Shadowdark :( Level 1
Two tribes of humanoids are warring within a small valley. Goblins, having just arrived on the western side, are trying to push out the eastern cave-dwelling Kobolds, who have been in the valley for many months. Each clan has been bringing reinforcements in to assist in winning their little war. The Goblins are likely to prevail unless the Kobolds’ latest plan can succeed.
This thirty page adventure uses seventeen pages to describe about 22 rooms inside some humanoid caves. Badly done OSE style descriptions, a hodge-podge of monsters, and no real interactivity beyond stabbing. I think I’ve seen this film before, and I didn’t like the ending.
Let us wander through the DriveThru listings for D&D, OGL, Classic D&D. It’s been awhile. Ah, here’s one! It’s listed as D&D! Game on! Oh, wait, it’s not D&D. It’s Shadowdark. Which is a fine game, but has now attracted the attention of the masses … and their own conflicting intents. Like $$$$$$$$$$.
It’s a cave. There’s a big central-ish room with goblins on one side and kobolds on the other. The goblins have a drow mercenary. The Watcher in the Water is sitting in a pool outside the cave, worshipped by cultists that show up twice a day. I don’t know, maybe you can do a Yojimbo, but the adventure is NOT going to support you in those endeavors. Not in any way other than to say “the kobolds will give you a jewel for helping.” Fucking great. The DESIGNER should be DESIGNING the adventure. They should be doing DESIGN things. I can roll on a random fucking table and pretext pretext pretext. But, dumping shit in to the adventure to facilitate interesting play? That’s fucking DESIGN. I shall resist the temptation to rant more about this, but it’s just so frustrating. No one cares. Not anymore. Ever. Anything decent that comes out is just a fluke, to be treasured. Perhaps because what is defined as decent has shifted to keep up with the top 3% ?
Ok, so, no real design here. It’s just a bunch of shit thrown together., Oh, goblins. Oh, drow mercenary. Oh, kobolds. Oh. the water in the water. Oh, cultists. Like, wtf?! The watcher, ok, maybe. It’s a pool of water and sticking a monster in a pool of water is time honored tradition, and we all know I love a well done trope. It’s not well done here, but, hey, you can’t win if you don’t play. But the fucking cultists?!? LIke, why the fuck are they a part of this? They show up in exactly one place, the lake in the valley (where the water lives) that the caves are by. What possible reason is there for them to be there? “Well, I rolled a white dragon, so I guess it’s there …” Yeah? Ok, sure, I guess we come up with a reason? I DO believe in random rolling as inspiration. But not to the point you’re ruled by it, and certainly not “as rolled.” Shit just seems to be thrown in here.
Let’s talk descriptions. Lest I be accused of being an asshole, here is a good description from the adventure: “Murky, sludgy pool. Brown water with thick slime along top. Filthy rags. Stained cloths discarded poolside. Facedown. Murdered Goblin floating face down in rear of pool.” Murky and sludgy? Awesome! Brown water? Great! Thick slime on top? Cool! Filthy rags and stained clothing are both ok. And a body floating facedown in it? Fucking rock on my man!
And, then, in other places, we get a terrible OSE style description. “Paid the price: two goblins lie dead in pools of blood on the floor.” Oh fuck off with that paid the price bullshit.
In other places we get such exciting descriptions as “Short cave opening. Four feet in height and width. Skull pile. 1d20+5 skulls of goblins, kobolds, and humans nearby. Filth. Humanoid excrement, thrown out of the cave opening.” It’s just bullshit, this intro keyword bullshit and then the follow up detail. If done right I think it can be effective. But this isn’t done right, at all.
Run around and stab shit. Very little to do beyond that. Bad descriptions. Just another adventure for the pulp mill.
This is $3 at DriveThru. The preview is six pages. You get to see a very small part of the first encounter, so, no way to make a purchasing determination from the preview. Which is the purpose of the preview. This means that the preview is a bad preview, not accomplishing the singular purpose of its existence.
By Stephen Smith Mister Smith Design OSE Levels 2-4
200 years ago, Goshawk Keep was overrun. It has been mostly buried for generations—the hidden underbelly long forgotten. But deep within the darkness life goes on…some things lost…some things found!
This thirty page adventure uses about five pages to describe eighteen rooms. It is overly simple, both in description and interactivity. A minimally described dungeon turned in to thirty pages … somehow?
This adventure is boring. It’s not altogether bad. There’s not enough content for the adventure to be bad. It’s just boring. And it’s boring in a very specific way. There’s this way of describing a room. It’s a minimal description, like “12 rats in a bedroom” or something like that, something close to Vampire Queen. But, it IS given an actual description. Something like “A Victorian bedroom with a dresser and 12 rats in it.” The description doesn’t really do anything for the room. It doesn’t add anything. It is not really evocative and doesn’t really lend itself to the actual play of the adventure. That’s not an altogether uncommon complaint of mine in an adventure, but the degree to which it pertains, the … lack of other issues? Really brings it into focus. Which kind of makes sense; if you’re not really saying anything in a description then there’s really not much room for me to complain, is there?
Let’s look at one of the rooms in the adventure. “Dispensary: Abandoned medical storage area” Are you not inspired!?!? There is a DM notes section, the DM text. It says “Treasure: 2 potions of healing, 1 scroll of neutralize poison, 1 scroll of cure serious wounds” I mean, this IS vampire queen. The description simply defines the room name. Yes, a Dispensary is a medical storage room and, yes, we ARE in an abandoned ruin. I’m not fucking around and being hyperbolic. That IS the complete room description. Can you put in a fucking rooms that says “Empty” or something like that? Absofuckinglutly you can. It’s just the … perfunctory nature of this that offends me so much. It’s a room that COULD have something interesting in it.And, in fact, it DOES have some decent treasure in it. But that was not enough to deserve a room description. If that doesn’t deserve a room description then what exactly DOES deserve a room description?
I note that this is just an extreme example in the adventure. It’s much more likely that the room would be something like this one “A small chapel with rows of stone benches facing a raised votive alter. The walls are painted with chipped and faded landscapes.” And then the DM text ONLY tells us that you see a ghostly figure float down the hallway. It takes a lot more words than that, but it doesn’t say anything more than that. It is EXACTLY the fucking same as those fucking chess players in Dwimmermount. This is, essentially, an empty room. Can you give an empty room a description? Yes. Can you put a weird thing in the dungeon? Yes. Can your dungeon consist primarily of this? WHhy the fuck did you write the dungeon then?
I know what this is. This is essentially the same as a random dungeon. You rolled on the back of the 1e DMG tables or something and that gave you list of monsters and treasure. Then you got a list of random room names to put on each room. Then you gave each room like a one sentence description. Done! That is the closest I can come to accurately describing what this dungeon is.
Can you write a dungeon like that? Sure? I Guess so? I mean, who the fuck am I to tell you what to like? But this just seems so … I don’t know. I mean, there is a small section at the end for amping up play. It says thing like “Maybe the kobolds are bullied by the orcs.” Well then why the fuck didn’t you put that in the actual fucking adventure? I mean, that IS the value that you, as the designer, is adding to the adventure. I can roll on the fucking random tables myself and say “looks like a sea cave theme to me.” But the actual shit beyond that? That IS the value that a designer is adding. I think that’s the joy, also, in creation. Is it just drudgery to get through so you can move on to the next thing? What the fuck would the point of all that to be? A school assignment? A futile hope to generate revenue?
In spite of the thirty pages, there is almost no content here. A simple definition description of a room. DM notes that are as minimal as are humanly possible, to the point of “12 rats.” There is almost no interactivity beyond a simple trap “Block trap: 1d10 damage” or stabbing something. I just don’t understand at all what the motivation for writing something like this would be.
This is $5 at DriveThru. The preview shows you eleven pages of spread, so about 22 adventure pages. Good preview.
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