The Door of Infinite Portals

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Bryce Lynch

The lone sentinel stands 7 ft-tall, is some 3 ft-thick, and 6 ft-wide. Its existence is relegated to the purview of sages, story tellers, shamans, and imaginative bards. Reasons for the Door’s appearance throughout history is unknown, and tales of its creation (as well as its true purpose) are equally mysterious and varied…

An evocative central premise is somewhat spoiled by a funhouse-like amount of arbitrary content.

The hook for this module is a doorway that appears out of nowhere. Through it lies the Hall of Keys, and from there portals to many different world. This concept has been seen several times before, notably in TSR’s Q1. The door proper, as well as the Hall of Keyes are richly described. Various options are provided for the origin of the door and how it appears. These small paragraphs are magnificently done. Imagine a snowy mountain pass and the characters slogging through hip-deep drifts. There on a crest is the door, and no snow falls within 30 feet of it … or that  you are hacking your way through thick jungle vegetation when suddenly you burst you in to a clearing with the door in the center and all of the plant and animal life dead within 30 feet of it. Now imagine they were done by someone with talent instead of a hack RPG reviewer. They are concise and evocative and really allow you paint a picture in your mind of what the environment is like. Then … things start to break down a bit. The description of the door proper takes almost half a page with another half page devoted to opening it. Those half pages build up a perfect picture of a Door of Infinite Portals; the thing is described beautifully and in nearly every way the characters could investigate it, it just gets a little long.

The door opens up in to the Hall of Keys. Like the door it is described in wonderful detail over about six pages. Some notable features of the Hall are that it is: lined everywhere with keys on hooks, has some portals in it, has a wooden throne on one end, and is covered with the bones and debris of thousands of creatures. Nice. Just like the door and the background the entire place is wonderfully described and really lets the DM imagine what the place is like, which I find then kickstarts my own imagination and lets me run with things. Almost an entire page is given over to the description of the keys while another four pages is given over to the description of what can be found searching the debris. These are magic items done right. Each one gets two or three paragraphs describing it and it’s powers with making up the bulk of the four pages that describe the boneyard and refuse inside the hall. They are very well done indeed and will be items that the party remember.

It is at this point that the module begins to break down a bit and loose focus. The idea is that the party is stuck here and must collect keys from the various portals in order to unlock the way back to their own homes. Four such examples are given for the DM: The Tower of Mysteries, Planet of the Orcs, a graveyard, and The Brigand Caves, each of which contains one of the keys the party needs. The transition in the modules layout between the Hall and the portal worlds is lacking a bit and not up to the usual very high standards of layout found in Usherwood products. The little mini-worlds are quite gimmicky and feel a bit like a twilight zone episode. In the graveyard all of the land can fall away in to the void at one point, except for the walls which kind of hang there, in space. In the Planet of the Orcs there are some prisoners who have been captured by orcs and rescued by other groups time and time again. This is a neat bit of theater for raising the tension since the prisoners can tell the party about others that have come before, only to never return or die. The Tower and graveyard in particular have a nice load of loot, with the Towers being richly detailed. The tower is full of traps and the graveyard is CRAWLING with undead, however the brigand caves may be the hardest challenge. Players may underestimate human brigand opponents, only to find themselves facing 10th and 12th level fighters. The module ends with the usual assortment from Usherwood: excellent GM adventure logs, about 20 very good pre-gen characters (nice to see Gordo’s hit 4th level), a half dozen or so new monster types, an appendix of detailed background for those that want it, and the richly detailed maps that I’ve come to expect from Usherwood. Both the layout and the content tends to suffer a bit in these sections. The content is short and feels more like individual twilight zone episodes (the mists of Castle Amber …) and the layout … well, something feels off about it.

If I were to use this I would probably steal the Door & Hall and make it the center of the campaign. Maybe start the characters out on an adventure or two, introduce the Door, and then have them adventure through it on a variety of quests in order to collect the keys. One of them could see the prisoners dropped in in order to enforce the idea of escape being a hopeless undertaking, and then finally returning them with their world significantly changed (Midnight, anyone?). Thus as a campaign idea the Door is an excellent product, however as a stand-alone and self-contained product it’s lacking.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/79075/The-Door-of-Infinite-Portals?affiliate_id=1892600

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UA1 – Arachnophobia!

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Bryce Lynch

In recent months, creatures dark and wicked have plagued the countryside. The insect-men (as the locals named them) have created no end of anarchy and fear among the populace. After many dark days, the Abbot Christoph sent no further word regarding his battle against the foul creatures in the monastery of the Caelian monks. What is the fate of the monks? And what is the nature of the creatures that roam freely below the catacombs of the monastery, the keep, and the village? Only a foray into the dark depths of the earth will tell truly…

This modules is the most evocative & creepy I’ve seen in a long while. It’s a very well done story and could be lifted and inserted in to almost ANY role-playing game or era, from future to modern to fantasy.

I have a confession to make: fantasy is not my true love. For all of my talk about whimsical and fantastic locations I am more drawn to the hard edge of great SciFi, especially in literature. In the RPG realm I truly love Gamma World and Metamorphosis Alpha. My favorite module is The Legion of Gold and I will run it over and over and over again and be just as giddy the latest time as I was the first. Among my favorite moments in that module is yelling “Buggems, No! BUGGEMS! NO!” My eyes are watering even now while I think about it. This module has much the same appeal to me that the Buggems plot in Legion of Gold has, but Arachnophobia! amps up the tension by at least an order of magnitude, if not more. It’s the best Aliens homage I’ve seen and manages to evoke that same feeling of dread and claustrophobia of the Aliens movie. It’s very well done, very evocative, and has that excellent layout that I’ve come to expect and admire about the Usherwood modules.

All of the Usherwood modules seem to have a very brief introduction and this module is no exception. There’s no 18 pages of irrelevant backstory to wade through prior to getting in to the adventure. There’s a brief paragraph that describes how to incorporate this module in to your campaign. This is essentially advice on the campaign specific elements of the module: what god names you may need to change and important geographic features for the setting. The three primary location are also described in two or three sentences so the DM has a good overview of the village, abbey, and keep. We’re treated to a brief section on scaling the adventure for higher and lower level groups and a small rumor table that the DM can work in on the journey to the location. And let me take this opportunity to say OH. MY. PELOR! Throwing this adventure at a group of 1st level characters, scaled down of course, would probably make an EXCELLENT kick off game for a campaign. I just would make sure the players are not sitting on any white chairs and that you have a steam cleaner and a change of pants ready for when they, uh … have accidents.

There is about one page of information about the village, and the information the party can find out there. As with most Kramer work the text is brief, clear, and to the point. There is quite a bit of information conveyed in that one page and it manages to invoke a certain atmosphere of dread and foreboding. FOr example, as the party approaches the village they see a plume of black smoke rising from it, and soon catch the whiff of charred flesh. They come upon a bonfire in the village with several charred and blackened corpses burning in it of strange creatures, as they catch site of a patrol from the keep riding away, and a forlorn populace looking on. Ok, I made up the ‘forlorn’ part, the author just mentions the villagers looking on, but while the designer never mentions that’s their attitude the overall feeling of the scene is one that inspires you have forlorn villagers, resigned to their fate. That folks is an example of evocative writing style; it helps me imagine the scene within my own mind and work in new elements. The text is brief but help the DM imagine what is going on so they can fill in the details. That’s EXACTLY what I’m looking for in a module: a kick start to my own imagination. There are other several other example of this in the page of village detail. The module paints a scene of despair and horror without itself being prurient. Beyond ‘solving the problem’ there are half a dozen or so other goals that the DM could work in, all in the realm of ‘fetch quests’. Someone in the village wants something from the monastery and asks the party for help. AGain these are brief, a sentence, and again they are done very well. There’s just enough detail for the DM to work it in to their version of the village without forcing anything down their throats.

The designer knows how to design a truly great map. The den of the monsters has at least five different entrances while the abbey has about another four or five. This gives the players a degree of freedom that is not present in simpler maps. They can watch the grounds, find a sneakier entrance, barricade others, or set traps. It’s really just a locale that the adventure takes place in. I realize that sounds silly to say because that’s what all site-based adventures are, however in this case we have a more realistic version of locale that allows for many more player options. It’s similar to the map design in the original Far Cry or the new Deus Ex video games. You have goal and an open-ended map, how you choose to accomplish your goal is up to you. This can become overly complex in certain circumstances, however in this module the five or so varying entrances to two sites serves to gives the players options while controlling the massive open-endedness problems that a DM might have if more options were present. The interior maps of the abbey and the den are not terribly exciting in terms of a looping design however they have other things going them. The abbey in particular has several interesting map features, especially with regard to entrance/exit options in the areas that are certain to contain the most drama. There are excellent wandering monster tables for both the abbey and the den. They feature a variety of vermin such as rats, spiders, and rot grubs, as well as the new featured monsters of the adventure. The table has a brief note next to many of the entries with detail about the encounter. For example “place a body here” or “webs from floor to ceiling.” Monster stats are included in a footnote-like fashion to the table. The stat block is about one of maybe two lines long, just enough to give the DM what they need. The footnote fashion allows the table to be clean and yet gives you all the stats near the table. Note these are TABLE footnotes, not PAGE footnotes. They make a lot of sense.

On to the encounters proper. There are about 34 locations within the abbey and den. The encounter text is more verbose than I usually like to see; terse and clear encounters are generally a feature in Usherwood modules and thus I was surprised to see things a little more verbose in this module. Generally an Usherwood module will have eight or so rooms to a page and this module has maybe four to a page. The reason for this, I’m sure, is the heavily evocative atmosphere that is being painted. The vast majority of the abbey is a charnel house. Fire has gutted a portion of it. There are bricked off sections. Rotted and decaying corpses abound, with horrific wounds and looks of fear and agony on their faces. When players open stuck doors they find a decaying arm falling through the crack. The picture painted is one of desperation and defeat. The encounters in the abbey are all with vermin, with a couple of exceptions. The one notable one is an appearance of The New Monster. This is a PERFECT tension building mechanism. The party gets glimpses of bodies in the village. They hear rumors. They see the results of the creatures in the ruined abbey and then have a brief encounter with them. Finally they are faced with descending down in to the hole in to the monsters lair. I can’t imagine that even the most die-hard gamiest would not be filled with dread and apprehension as they enter the lair. The lair has more than a few interesting and evocative encounters and much resembles the aliens lair in Aliens; full of resin walls and decaying corpses. Eggs, cows, and larvae abound. This is not an adventure for squeamish players. There are also more than a few other encounters in the lair, as well as a mechanism for accidentally, or purposefully, burning the place down. The new monsters, a kind of spider/human centaur-like beast, should freak the players out. Several varieties are provided for. They could be thought of as Driders done right, or perhaps Driders done by a horror artist.

The module also has a section of preg-gens, and the maps are done absolutely beautifully, especially the full-color ones in the PDF. There also a nice section of DM adventure log pages that can be photocopied and used, which I found very useful. The magic items tend toward the non-standard type. IE: a warhammer with a notable history, a sword with other abilities, and so on. Many of the treasures have histories attached and there are notes on how they may serve as seeds for a different adventure, or consequences of selling them. This is an excellent way to handle magic items and such treasures and I wish more designers would do so; it adds flavor to something that can otherwise kill the feel of a good game.

The encounter text is a BIT too wordy for my tastes, and there is a notable omission of details regarding what happens when/if a fire starts, otherwise this is a near perfect module. I don’t keep a lot of what I buy to review however I will certainly be keeping this one. It’s very very good.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/56462/Arachnophobia-The-2017-Edit?affiliate_id=1892600

Posted in Level 3, Reviews, The Best | 4 Comments

BHS1 – Yrchyn the tyrant

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Bryce Lynch

An intrepid band of adventurers enter the treacherous cavern complex of Yrchyn — the tyrannical chieftain of a tribe of blood-thirsty kobolds. Does the party have what it takes to rid the region of these lizard vermin? And what else may lie within the dark, dank caverns? And is this just the beginning of the party’s troubles?

An excellent kobold lair, this is the first module in the Bone-Hilt Sword campaign from Usherwood. It’s nicely done in an environment that resembles the almost-high-fantsy world of the early D&D modules.This module does not mess around. The introductory text is very short, to the point, and well put together. There’s a village, the party is in the village for some reason, and it has a problem for the party to solve. The backstory in the front of he module is short, and the hooks provided are barebones but makes sense. In particular I was drawn in by the rumors of kobold attacks on vital trading routes up north, along with common knowledge that the kobolds died out long ago, with confirmation from the visiting dwarves. This is all communicated in about as many sentences as I used, however the author is much clearer and somehow communicates much more detail than I ever could. These very simple hooks work together to create an environment that the DM can really flesh out in the village. The tone, tenor, and motivations, anxieties, and other emotions of the villagers is preset, which is all I need to work my own magic on the village of Usherwood and bring it to life. The village has a small map won one page with 20 locations detailed on a facing page. OMG! All the information you need next to each other! You don’t have to flip ages between the map and the descriptions! This sort of small attention to detail is present throughout the module. As with the second in the series, it is very well laid out, perhaps the best job I’ve seen. Combined with the effective but terse writing style of the author this makes for a compact product that is full of possibilities and adventure. I approve.

The regional map provided is wonderful. It reminds me a great deal of some of the gorgeous Harn maps. Like the best of maps, it causes me to wonder what’s over there in that corner, and wouldn’t it be a cool adventure if X happened over there. There’s no wandering monster table provided for the 100 mile trip to the kobold caves, or even an indication where they might be from the NPC’s. This will be up to the DM to create as the players move along. There are two wilderness encounters provided, and just like in the second modules, one is much more interesting than the other. A kobold scouting party raiding the camp at night isn’t too interesting as written, however I think it does provide a nice description of what may happen if the party retreats from the caves to rest and recover. The second, a kobold war party 65 strong, is much more interesting. A large encounter like this telegraphs it’s coming to the party and allows them to react as they wish. Ambush the war party, follow them, track them back, spy on them, etc. This is where those hare-brained PC plans are generated from, and I love it.

The cave complex map is very good. It’s spread out over two pages and is primarily a cavern system with a smaller section of worked tunnels. There are crawl spaces around the main caverns and most of the rooms are littered with murder holes. The design is a nice looping one, with lots of ways to get from location a to b, which allows the party to ambush encounters, get ambushed by kobolds from behind, and avoid/sneak past encounters. I really like these sorts of maps for the amount of freedom of play they allow. There are also several ways to get to levels two, the orc caverns detailed in the second module in the series, if the DM has the product. The multiple entrances on the second level are something I like as well, it really gives the impression of a multi-dimensional space. The cavern has a streak in it, and there are several water features and environmental effects because of it, which is nicely added variety.

This module, and the next one in the series: The Shattered Skull, remind me a great deal of the style of G1, The Steading. There are great non-railroady maps, some prisoners, and some humanoid allies the chief is hosting. The module lacks the faction element that the rebel orcs provided in G1, however it does a great job of offering up unique and interesting magic items, in contrast to G1’s rather generic feel. There are several nice traps that go above and beyond the normal traps seen in modules. There are not really any weird fantasy elements to the module however there are quite a few interesting and evocative things going on, including refuse rooms to search with giant centipedes in them. The description given for this encounter really got me going and I came up with a very interesting way to run the room, totally changing the way I’ve run these types of rooms in the past. This is EXACTLY what I’m looking for in a module; help me with my own imagination. Get it going and let me do the rest.

The tail end of the product has some pregens, a detailed listing of the NPC’s, several maps of the town, caves, regional, and so on, DM adventure record sheets, and a LONG regional history section. It’s funny, I don’t seem to mind these things when they are included as an appendix but I go apoplectic when they show up in the front of a module. You can read more about my fanboy drooling over the layout in my Shatter Skull review, and the layouts here are just as good. This is quite a deadly adventure; the kobold murder holes, manned by light crossbow wielding kobolds in spaces the party will have a hard time reaching, are going to be a real challenge to a party that barges in. There is a possibility to kill the party several times over if they don’t tae a real thoughtful attitude toward the caves. Just as it should be.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/56579/Yrchyn-the-tyrant-PDF?affiliate_id=1892600

Posted in Level 1, Reviews, The Best | 8 Comments

BHS2 – The Shattered Skull

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Bryce Lynch

An intrepid band of adventurers enter the treacherous cavern complex of the Shattered Skull — a blood-thirsty tribe of orcs. Does the party have what it takes to ride the region of the vile humanoids? And what else may lie within the dark, dank caverns?

This is an intriguing, and refreshing, module that gets almost everything right. It could use some spicing up, but would otherwise be a great substitute for the orcs caves in the module B2.

There are elements to this module that I find very exciting and I’m intrigued with what could be done. The module is set in the same cave system as the Yrchyn kobolds, which were detailed in the first module of this series. The background and introductory information are very short, maybe a paragraph of each, along with another paragraph of hooks that the DM can work from. And yet, it all made perfect sense. The writing is clear, terse, in a decent-sized font, and communicates exactly what the DM needs to know to run the adventure. It was a very refreshing pace from the overly long backstories in many modules. The introduction, about two pages long, also contained a host of other information for the DM. A throw-away paragraph on scaling it up/down, a pointer to the website for more information on the campaign background. A brief section, maybe five sentences, of boxed text that details exactly the what and why of the adventure for the players.  It also contains two wilderness encounters for the 100 mile journey from the town to the caves, and a notes section on the bottom of each page for the DM. I found the intro, and layout style, to be absolutely a breath of fresh air in the presentation of modules. The writing was terse and yet detailed the core data & flavor needed. The ONLY boxed text in the entire module appears in this section, and really just highlights what the players know/are told to kick things off, and even that if very brief and well written. The inclusion of a notes section at the bottom of every page is wonderful. I always find myself jotting down notes about the names of new NPC’s the players meet, shop names and locations, and so on. All of this comes in a 2-column layout with a font that is large and easy to read. Did I mention that the core section of the module has about twelve room to a page? I’m no layout expert so I don’t have the words to describe what or how all of this was accomplished, but I can say that the result is outstanding. I thought that the Johnny Rook adventures were the best laid out I’d ever seen however this tops even that. I know I’m gushing over something unrelated to content. I try to be very forgiving about this sort of thing and hardly ever mention it, except in very dire/confusing products. Whoever made the decisions must work professionally in this area, as I suspect the Johnny Rook people do. Let me finish up by stating that using a web page to expand on the background and campaign data is perfect. It takes advantage of the modern era and resources while keeping that data out of the module, where it can confuse, and yet is still available for people who want the detail. And it’s actually where they say it is! unlike a certain troll …

The two wilderness encounters are mostly just throw-aways. A bandit encounter and a group of giant orcs. The orc encounter is a little nicer because it sets things up a bit more. The players get some warning about the encounter and this things should be more interesting. The bandits are just a night camp ambush and are not very interesting, even though I applaud them for using humans instead of humanoids … even if the rest of the module, and series, involves humanoids. There’s no wandering monster table, which is disappointing however I do wish to mention the stat blocks. They are presented very well. One or two lines that communicates all of the required data, in a slightly smaller font, and boxed to standout. This is a perfect way to communicate the data, and again shows the high quality of the layout.

The maps for the cave system are WONDERFUL and are some of the best I’ve seen recently. The abandoned kobold caves that make up the first level are about half caves and half worked, with some water features running the cave section and some very interesting murder hole passages running alongside the rooms. There are multiple ways between the various areas and rooms, allowing the party lots and lots of choices for exploration. There are also AT LEAST three ways to get from level one to level two of the dungeon! This is all great and it’s hard to ask for much more in this area … maybe if the pits exited on level 2 or there were slide traps? This is exactly the sort of map I’m looking for. They manage o fit 31 different encounters on the first level, which spreads out over two pages in the book. Level two is just as good at the first. It’s a nice cave system map with a water feature and lots of ways to get from one section to another, allowing for ambushes and encounter avoidance. There are also TWO more entrances to the dungeon on this level! This is REALLY excellent dungeon map design.

Level one is an abandoned kobold cave system. The players probably cleared it out in the first module in the series. This allows for another OSR element to show up: site repopulation. Since the party was here A YEAR AGO there have been some new arrivals. Sp,e vermin have moved in. There’s a group of grimlocks that have come up from the depths, and there’s an outpost of the orcs on level two. There’s also a lot of empty rooms, A great ‘monsters that have wandered in’ wandering monster table, and a nice trap with a subtable for broken bones. Monster stats are included in the wandering table in a kind of footnote style, along with some notes on the encounter. This is an almost perfect way to present the monsters. The stats don’t get in the way but are present, and the notes gives some flavor to encounters. Again this shows the high-quality and fresh layout. The second level is much the same as the first except far fewer empty rooms and more humanoids in the rooms and wandering monsters tables. There are some great encounter details in the dungeon levels as well. Slick stream crossings with varying depths, fights on a stone bridge, zombie harems, a few weird encounters, ambassadors from other regions, prisoners, etc. And these are not your typical puritanical orcs, they are dirty sobs that deserve what they get. The prisoners have been abused in various ways. The module is not prurient in any way, but you do get a much greater sense that these are bestial creatures, and evil. While I don’t generally like humanoids, because they flavorless, these have a lot of flavor. The impact of human bandits/cultists/etc performing these acts would probably be still greater, and this my preference for seeing them in modules, but this is a matter of taste and perhaps religion.

That’s the FIRST half of the module. The second half is full of details on the adventure. Sections on the new monsters, several pages of pregen pc’s with pictures, NPC stats and personalities, A section on integrating the game in to a campaign and linking it with the other modules, maps of the nearby town with a general key, maps of the caves, maps of the continent showing the region this is in and a very very good regional map showing the town in relation to the cave system. There are also several hard copies of adventure log pages for the GM. The amount of supporting detail is amazing, and it’s all VERY well done.

This is absolutely an adventure done right. It’s a little less whimsical than something like Pod Caverns, however it is a magnificent product that hits nearly every single thing I’m looking for in a module. The layout is … revolutionary is too strong a word, but quite quite refreshing, new, and very well done. This would be a VERY solid replacement for the orc lair in the caves of chaos type mini-campaign, and an overall great adventure even if it were not connected in the Usherwood Bone-hilt Sword series.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/78055/The-Shattered-Skull-PDF?affiliate_id=1892600

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Earth Unleashed

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Bryce Lynch

The Druid cried from the town square: “Mother Nature gave us a sign; a warning! She wants us to leave, leave the forest so she can heal it! Twice her warnings came. Who knows what happens the next time?” No good can come when the skies open up and rock and sand pour forth! And indeed, nothing does …

I’m pretty sure that there are two classic villains in D&D. Everyone is familiar with the first: The Evil High Priest. These guys have been around forever and are a staple of the genre. The second type is the Druid. A close relative of the evil priest, these folks are looking for balance and are just as fanatical as the EHP in defense of their own causes. Invariably they come in to conflict with the townsfolk and their true natures are revealed: they’re nuts. They’ve lulled us in to looking them over because of their inclusion as a class in 1E and onward, however let me remind you that Assassin also appears in that volume. Druids have long been a staple of adventure villainy, they just don’t get the limelight that the EHP does.

The module starts with a very long and very boring backstory that goes on for what seems like PAGES, but is actually more like a single page. It details the events surround the construction of a giant colossus by a wizard and his eventual defeat by a group from the forces of Light. This is one of those ‘ride around in the chest and conquer the world’ type giant colossus, that seem to be popular with a certain crowd. In defeat the colossus gets buried and a small village eventually grows up on the spot. A wizard finds a note about ti, discovers the colossus, and starts the process of reanimating it. The earthquakes and rain of stones causes the local Druid to think Mother Nature is angry and she starts preaching against the village and gathering a group of ranger, druids, and other nature freaks to help support mother natures cause. The party gets to investigate the strange phenomena, fight the druids, fight the wizards minion constructs, and maybe fight the colossus. Discuss.

There are some nifty elements to this adventure. As I mentioned, Druids are classic villains and I like seeing them and their flavor of extremism show up. A giant animate statue buried under a village, breaking free, is also a cool image. I also LOVE how the new wizard is portrayed. It’s raining so he takes shelter in a local temple, finds some notes on a previous wizards world domination project, and sets off to do the same! It’s like every wizard in the world is just waiting for the chance to pluck out their eye, cut off their hand, and go off on everyone else. This sort of ‘Just biding my time till I get more powerful so I can kill everyone/rule the world’ mentality is very neat, and reminds me a lot of the wizards in Anomalous Subsurface Environment.

Then, there are the misses. There’s WAY too much backstory presented. I’m pretty sure it’s an attempt to explain away everything that pops up in the adventure and give it a reason for being there. This is totally unnecessary; you don’t need a reason beyond “creation of an evil wizard who was defeated.” Just leave the rest for me, or leave it as a mystery. By explaining everything you take away the mystery which destroys the wonder. The druids are also REALLY gullible. The module attempts to explain how they are mistaken and being tricked, etc. This means that the 5th to 8th level druids and rangers don’t believe the word ‘gullible’ is in the dictionary. ARGGGGG!!!! How did they survive to 8th level??!?! They don’t need to be mistaken, they’re frigging Druids, the definition of extremist viewpoints! They’re like the Epicureans “Moderation in all things … including moderation!” Just have the buggers lay in to people because they’re druids! But, that’s not a valid viewpoint in the d20 high fantasy era, so they have to be mistaken. *sigh*

The adventure is short, and essentially event based. In five days time the colossus is going to rise and start killing folk/conquering the world. Until then the party can talk to the villagers and poke around the environment. The village where the core of the adventure takes place has eight locations, including “River” and “Main Road”, so the DM is going to have to put some serious work in to come up with a village and NPC’s for the party to interact with.Eventually they will find a golem walking in a wide circle, guarding the perimeter of the village, and might track it back to the entrance of the buried colossus. They’ll also be attacked at some point by the Druid and nature freaks, and, eventually, probably witness the colossus rising up from beneath the village. A friendly paladin ghost clues them in to the holes in the chest/back, which the party can use to get inside the golem and kill the new crazed wizard. Oh, and get to fight the invisible golems that wear boots of tracelessness, made special just for them. WTF?!?! Don’t justify your monsters, just do it! Why do they need to wear the boots? They’ve animate statues who are invisible, you don’t need to put the boots on them to justify them not leaving tracks,  just make them super light also. I like to call this ‘2E logic’, where everything has to make sense and be explained away. *bleech*

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/60621/Earth-Unleashed-OSRIC?affiliate_id=1892600

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Blood Runs Cold

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Bryce Lynch

Many generations ago the land that is now the Blackened Fen was actually the thriving and warlike city-state of Shyyth. Populated by a race of evil humans knows as Annelids, Shyyth was a religious center of dark renown where the Annelids held sacrifice to their vile god Hirudinea …

This is a mostly linear adventure that has been converted from a 3rd edition format. It has a cool monster, the Leech-men, and not enough loot.

Remember the old “Top 100 Things I’ll do if I ever Become an Evil Overlord” list? It seems that D&D has the opposite problem; it’s the good rulers that are always making the silly mistakes. Put a watch on the evil ruined tower. Stamp out the thieves guild. Drain the swamps and turn them in to farmland. In this module the local ruler hits the daily double: the thieves guild is waylaying people and sending them to the once-destoryed-but-now-being-repaired evil temple in the swamp. Yes, and evil swamp cult trying to bring back their god. EVIL has a decidedly “I’m a joiner” bent in D&D.

Here’s the low-down: thieves guild is waylaying people and sending them off to the evil swamp temple by boat. Evil swamp temple is sacrificing them to bring their god/cult back. The module starts off with the party watching a local band of the towns finest shaking down some merchants, and then the party. As far as I can tell there is no reason for this encounter, except to maybe drop a potential hook. However there’s a hook already provided in encounter #2. Once the party reaches the town, of which no information is provided, they are jumped by the thieves guild. Note that this is 12th level party. The fighters no doubt have plate, the clerics are glowing with holy light, and the wizards probably have a permanent cold flame shield surrounding them. Of course that means the guild, looking for some easy coin, jumps them. This entire encounter is really just a way to convey that there are people being enslaved and taken to a river barge in port. The railroad then moves to the barge, with perhaps a short layover for a giant croc attack if the party doesn’t fly/teleport. The riverboat is … completely linear! Attack the guys on deck. Go down the stairs. Attack the guys below deck. Free the prisoners. Find a way over the pit of leeches. Open last door and kill mini-boss. There’s not much of a challenge here. The leech swarm in the pit and the 3 leech-men on the boat are pretty cool, but otherwise it’s just a linear little run with 2,000gp in loot. Oh, and the mini-boss will drink a portion of gaseous form and escape through the wooden sides of the ship. You know, the water-tight and/or leaking water planks since this portion of the ship is under-water. As a player I would call foul.

Part two involves taking the riverboat through the swaps to the cults hideout in the middle of the swamps. There are no random encounters or wandering tables. The DM is given two fixed encounters to include if they feel the party needs more challenge. The temple is about 40 miles in. Once the lizard men (encounter 1) and wights (encounter 2) are defeated then the party gets to assault the temple. It’s partially underwater and has about 15 rooms. Built as a kind of beaver dam, I really think an excellent dungeon opportunity was missed. There’s really one way between the main levels, although there are a couple of underwater entrances as well. This would have been a fine opportunity to create a really nice multilevel environment with lots of ways between the levels. Populated with leeches and leech-men it could have been pretty cool. Instead we get a couple of leech-men (3, to be precise), some 1HD guards and 2HD lizard men, a couple of scrags and two nagas. There’s a cool mud golem (with super-cool illustration!) and a giant leech/god to battle, but really the temple is a very boring place. If you’ve got cool monsters then you should use the crap out of them! Leech-men! Leech-men! There is a small order of battle provided, so if the temple goes on alert you know what order the party will slaughter the under-powered opponents.

There are some nifty ideas presented in this module. Things like the leech-men, the pit of leeches, and the beaver-dam temple. There’s also not NEARLY enough loot, a whole lot of under-powered monsters, and a very linear encounter path. A larger map with multiple ways between the levels, more evocative environments inside the beaver-dam, and more leech-men, leeches, leech-magic, and leech inspired magic items could have made this in to an adventure the players would remember for ages to come. Instead, it shows off the flaws in doing a conversion from d20. Linear. Not enough treasure (XP), and nothing really fun inside the temple to play with. Come on, an idol that turns the touchers mouth in a leech mouth! Or a bunch of leeches that fall from the ceiling as a trap! A giant leech on the floor like a trapper! Oozy blood that the leeches collect! There’s a missed opportunity here.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/50854/Blood-Runs-Cold-OSRIC?affiliate_id=1892600

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The Divine Alligator

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Bryce Lynch

The Lizard Men, once peaceful, are now raiding the towns, mines, and logging camps. Can the party negotiate a peach treaty?

This module is most similar to portions of the Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, the portions without the freaky stuff. That means a home base and murderous humanoids to slaughter in an open-ended assault.

This module has a few very good things going for it. First, the players start off in a boom town on the frontier full of miners and loggers. Recent problems with the lizard men have caused an influx of “lizard killers”. These are essentially mercenaries, adventurers, and trophy hunters. The goody two-shoes mayor wants the party to seek out a nearby settlement of lizard men and negotiate a peace treaty. The camp is very loosely described, maybe twelve entries with half as many NPC’s. A goodly number have a strong dislike, or more, for the lizard men. While the module never describes it as such, I got a very ‘Deadwood’ vibe from this section. Temporary structures, guys riding through selling lizard heads, and so on. NONE of that appears in the module however that kind of atmosphere is one that’s seldom encountered in RPG’s and this would be the perfect place to introduce it. Think of all the role-playing opportunities in a Deadwood like RPG village/camp! It could be a perfect little base of operations and much more interesting than the traditional feudal lord settlements that traditionally serve as home bases. All of this comes from the brief section describing the recent boomtown nature of the site and a few brief mentions of the Lizard-Killers. The actual town is full of middle-class morality. Uh … I mean 2nd Edition morality. Mixed races living together in harmony, leaders who want the party to find peaceful solutions, etc. Too much time is spent on the backstory of villain. The camp is much more interesting and could have used a whole lot more description than the two pages that the twelve entries get. This being a module for 7th level characters I guess a home-base town would be wasted. However, the seeds of a very good idea are in that town and if the DM puts forth some effort they would get a much better payoff than most modules. There’s a very brief wandering monster table to get to the Indi^H^H^H ^H Lizard Man village; six daytime and six nighttime entries. It’s full of your typical swamp encounters; undead, ooze, vermin, and a catoblepas. The only thing that really stands out is a swarm of thousands of rats, the rest are pretty mundane.

The lizard man village is full of noble savages who are just misunderstood. A diplomatic party will learn that it’s a new aggressive splinter tribe that’s causing the trouble, and how to get to them. The parties overnight rest will be interrupted by an assassination attempt on the shaman by a lizard-killer. Once again,2E morality raises its head: the assassin isn’t evil but stepping on CE lizard man eggs is. Go Figure. Anyway, all of this is really just a lead in to the second interesting part of the adventure: the assault on the splinter tribes compound.

The splinter tribe is lairing in an old abandoned city complex with water on one side and a mountain tunnel on the other. In the center stands the palace with the Evil High Priest. There are prisoner and slave corrals scattered about. The party can walk in and get an audience with the Lizard Man EHP, which probably ends with a pitched battle with 25 or so evil combatants, most of which are 2HD. This is the way the module leads you. I’m not sure that’s really a challenge for a 7th level party. In any event, there’s really not much of an Order of Battle beyond the palace guard, which is a real miss in my book. A lot more detail on the rest of the compound, the guards, barracks, patrols, etc, could have turned this in a great little sandbox assault on an EHP compound. Prisoners in several places. A possibility for a revolt. Guard patrols and watchtowers. Barrels full of gas, uh, I mean Lamp Oil, to explode. Then stealth becomes a real option, as does a prisoner revolt, as does an assassination, as do so many other hair-brained PC plans. THAT would be cool. Instead we get an EHP+minions battle …     Just like the town, with a little work the DM would turn this section in to something really interesting, which is more than most modules can claim. There’s a short little section after this that’s meant to be the climax of the adventure; a solo boss battle with the evil half-dragon/half-croc that’s masterminding everything from a temple a short distance away. It’s not really very interesting, and swapping it the adventure so it comes before the lost city assault would probably make a better adventure.

There’s really not much in the way for treasure to motivate a 7th level gang. A few +1 magic items and a little coin/gems/jewelry. Some of the gems and jewelry are described, which I appreciate; it saves me from generating a description. The most interesting magic item is a broach of shielding that is actually a headdress. I wish more designers would do things like that, the added detail really makes items and the adventure more interesting.

Who’s up for omelets!

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/25763/The-Divine-Alligator-OSRIC?affiliate_id=1892600

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The Andwan Legacy

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Bryce Lynch

Two half-orcs and a noblewoman enter a bar. Straight away one of the grim half-orcs approaches you and says in perfect common: “Begging your pardon sir, my lady wishes to speak with you, would you be so kind as to follow me to her table?”

This is a brief investigatory adventure with a small dungeon attached. The party will hunt around for clues, enter the dungeon, and fight a group of thugs, all in a high fantasy fashion.

How much are you willing to suspend belief? Last night the wife and I broke out Baldurs Gate Dark Alliance 2 for the PS3. The two room tavern has a rat problem in the basement (UG!) and you go down to solve it. The basement cellar is approximately 8,456,432 times larger than the first floor. Ok, it’s just an excuse to press the ‘X’ button and kill things. How about a town large enough to support an exotic bird importer but small enough that a fired servant has to leave town to find work? And with a dungeon under a house that has all the families wealth … in the form a solid gold peacock statue inlaid with 10 diamonds worth $500,000 gp? This sort of high fantasy style is a real turn off for me. I’ll take dirt farmers and fields of fairie dragons all day long however this sort of realism kills things for me. Once you try to be realistic you give me permission to poke holes and look for flaws. If you instead go PoMo, well, there’s no way anyone can argue with that.

The party is hired by a noblewoman to figure out how to get at the legacy/treasure left by her recently dead husband in the family dungeon. It’s guarded by traps and puzzles and he neglected to leave instructions. The idea is that the party will go to the dungeon, search around the house, go back to the dungeon, search around the house, go back to the dungeon and then get the treasure, the aforementioned gold peacock statue. Poking about the house likely reveals some clues as to how to get in to the dungeon and how to get at the treasure, as well as the fact that things are a bit off in the house. Then, of course, there’s the family friend who eventually approaches the party to let them know that the noblewoman is an impostor … The 14HD stone golem and 10HD fireball trap are NOT going to be the roughest part of the adventure for the party; it’s going to be the ambush when they come out of the dungeon. The dungeon is small, only six rooms, but it is pretty deadly with the stone golem and fireball.  That portion has a nice OSR feel overall; repeated excursions to the dungeon and some trap/encounter avoidance. At the end the party is almost certain to face an ambush by one or perhaps two groups of thugs. This could be a rough encounter if they also faced the golem and fireball on this dive.

It’s high fantasy with some good role-playing opportunities in the manor house. There are some absurd portions of it, but just like that PS3 game, the fun will probably show through in the end. And unlike that PS3 game, this module is short enough that it won’t overstay its welcome and become a grind. The many and varied NPC opportunities should ensure that.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/23337/The-Andwan-Legacy-OSRIC?affiliate_id=1892600

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Deadly Ice

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Bryce Lynch

The seventh cousin to a nearby Dwarf king needs to be escorted through a mountain pass. As a blizzard sets in the party seeks shelter in a local inn, only to have things take a frightful turn for the worse.

What makes a module OSR? Is it enough to slap some THAC0 in a product, and is there a difference between “OSR” and 1E, 2E, Basic, Holmes, OSRIC, S&W, etc? There is to me. OSR means weird stuff, idiosyncratic rules, whimsy and the FANTASTIC. The High Fantasy style that I associate with 2E onward just doesn’t qualify. This is the same old boring stuff that has been coming out since the end of the 1E era. I don’t like it and I feel betrayed when I buy it. I have only myself and my irrational exuberance to blame.

The hook for this module is very long and involved. The party is contacted by a dwarf who wants escorted through a mountain pass. The pass is patrolled by a band of orcs. The party goes in to the pass, is confronted by a blizzard, and retreats to an inn in the pass to wait it out. During the stay their customer is assaulted/replaced and the some really mean orcs break in, threatening to kill their charge. An investigation reveals someone has recently left the inn and the party needs to track him down to save their customer from the orcs. The party sets off to a local tomb to find the evildoer.

That is a lot of build up for a hook, and yet hook it is. Everything needs to happen so the betrayal at the inn can happen, the suspect flee, the orcs break in, and the party pursue to the tomb. There’s a decent amount of interacting with NPC’s and yet there is no freedom involved. If the party doesn’t do what they are supposed to then the adventure will not happen. The villain is armed with a boatload of portion to make his task of treachery easier: invisibility, sleep, gaseous form, etc. FOLLOW THE PLOT. GO TO THE ADVENTURE. It has to happen. That’s a hook, not an adventure. I would suggest glossing over as much as possible and pushing the party along to the core of the adventure: the Deadly Ice Tomb.

The tomb is that of an ancient evil king. Our evildoer is hiding in it, having killed his guide and entered with some of his gaseous form potions. The tomb complex has about 20 rooms and is laid as a kind of hub & spoke map with four spokes, one of which the party enters from. There’s a few vermin outside of the tomb, and some Ice Warrior guardians inside the tomb. I doubt any of it it going to be a challenge for a 4th-5th level group. That’s just about it for the tomb. There’s one or two interesting things just before the party gets in to the tomb: a walled up passageway to be cleared and a narrow bridge crossing a crevice. Otherwise, this is really just a historically accurate representation of a burial complex with a few ice guardians. While on the subject, I’d like to pick a nit about those guardians. The idea is that if the party messes with certain things then the guardians rise up from their tombs and attack. Pretty standard. But if the party opens the tombs first and destroys the bones/skeletons and THEN mess with the stuff … then the skeletons reform and attack anyway. WTF?!? This is no way to reward intelligent play. This reminds me of that “Bad Video Game Gamemasters” meme that floated around awhile back. Why are you punishing the players for thinking ahead? In fact, MOST of the adventure seems to punish the players and railroad them. If they guard their customer really well then the DM gimps them anyway so he can be replaced and the adventure can go on. If they think ahead in the dungeon then the DM gimps them and ignores their actions just so some crappy ice skeletons can attack. That. Is. Not. Good. The tomb has almost nothing nothing going for it and is uninteresting except to an anthropology/archeology major. Most of the magic items are of the “+1 sword” variety. Not counting the ice skeletons there are two new monster types: a snow troll and a whitemonk. The troll is a troll with a cold breath weapon. The whitemonk is more interesting. It’s a small pac-man like rodent with 2 legs and a GIANT MOUTH WITH TEETH. It looks like it came out of Malifeux or something, a really nice little monster.

That orcs that are a part of the hook are presented as a noble band, probably more so than many of the PC’s I’ve played. I’ve toyed with this idea in the past however I still think I’d prefer my orcs to be subhuman beasts who rend and tear small children as snacks and do other odious things … if I were to use orcs at all. I’d much prefer to use human tribesmen who rend and eat small children as snacks.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/24073/Deadly-Ice-OSRIC?affiliate_id=1892600

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The Minotaur

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Bryce Lynch

A minotaur, which no one has seen clearly before, has gone mad and has begun kidnapping young boys and girl from the simple farm community near his lair. The thing is that this monster has lived in his maze for 80 years and never hurt anyone before. What is behind these events, and what is driving the minotaur?

This is a light adventure module that’s sparse on combat and has an ethical dilemma in the end. It’s meant for four 3rd levels characters or one 6th level Paladin.

This module fits in to two interesting sub-niches: 1-on-1 play and Solo Monsters. I like solo and 1-on-1 modules as a nice replacement for a 2-player board game. The wife and I played Grave of the Green Flame over and over again with Holmes-edition characters and I received a nice collection of 1-on-1 adventures in the RPGgeek Secret Chthanta program that we’re looking forward to breaking in to soon. Likewise, 100 Bushels of Rye may be one of the best modules ever produced, and centers around a small village with some issues and single monster in his lair. I think these solo monster products build up a lot of tension; the players explore and talk to villagers which provide a lot of roleplaying and foreshadowing, and then venture in to the monsters lair to confront the beast. You know Smaugs there. You know he’s powerful and can kick your ass 12 ways to Sunday, and yet you go anyway …

The module was written as a 1-on-1 for a single 6th level Paladin, who is included as a pregen. Each section has some notes on how to convert it to group play however it’s almost always unnecessary; the bulk of the changes are just rewording the boxed and removing some references to this being the Paladins home village. There’s about two pages of introductory prep that includes backstory, synopsis, hooks, and so on. None of them are particularly strong, and it’s quite wordy, however the kick-off is a pretty good one: a farmers young son has just been chose by lot to be a sacrifice to the minotaur and the farmer is vigorously protesting. The other farmers are advancing. What do you do?

That’s a good kick off with some strong opportunity for role-play. There are a couple of other things the party can do in the village: talk to the elder, visit the wise-woman, and talk to the villagers. Eventually they will end up at a cave entrance on a hill where everyone knows the minotaur lives. This is the start of short little 26 room dungeon. The dungeon map is not the complex looping designs I prefer, however it is nice & varied and the different sections have different feels, which is always a good thing. The caves section has three of the seven encounters. The lab portion feels like a wizards lab, the maze has a minotaur in it, and so on. I’m actually very impressed with the map … but since the dungeon is a Solo Monster, most of the rooms are empty. There’s a minotaur, an animated sword, some vermin in the caves, and that’s just about it, except for the twist monster. The complex is very realistic in the way I like my solo monster lairs to be. This is required since otherwise you end up with a very boring little adventure. There has to be a lead up and in this case the empty dungeon is it. I would have preferred a bit more foreshadowing on the minotaur proper to build tension even more. Maybe some body parts, or deep horn gouges on the wall, or the like. There’s an interesting room or two in the dungeon, the initial ‘scarecrow’ stands out as does a wall of force trap, but for he most part it’s just going to be some empty rooms. Eventually the minotaur will be found, along with her babies. So Mr Paladin man, whatcha gonna do? Two babies detect as evil, the boys, and the other two girl minotaur babies do not. Whatcha gonna do now?

This is a no-win situation for a Paladin and falls clearly in to a “The DM is fucking with you and not in a good way” bucket. I have strong feelings on this topic. I am well known for playing a Possible Worlds Paladin: “In some possible world, this is a good act! *hack*” I actually have a custom T-shirt that reads “Don’t impose your western Judeo-Christian value system on my characters definition of Lawful Good.”  And if you’re my DM and try to mess with me because of it then please allow me to say FUCK YOU. The only reason this nonsense exists is to mess with the player and that’s not fun. I’ve seen Paladins dealt with well in exactly one instance; some Dungeon Magazine adventure I think, where the Paladin was a drunk and always on the edge of loosing their paladin-hood. THAT was good portrayal. So how should Mr Paladin deal with those babies? By hacking them without a second thought and moving on. If the DM wants to use it as a future hook that’s fine. If they want to punish you because you didn’t do what they thought you should do then feel free to ignore them. YOU get to play your character, not the DM.

Hmmm, that took a turn, didn’t it? Anyway, the module also has a crazy man in it who’s creating a minotaur army to take over the world. Only he’s not evil, he’s mad. But rational enough to be fully functional. Uh … Moral Quandary time again. Can a Paladin *hack* someone who’s just mad and not evil? The Supreme Court does not deal in theoreticals and neither does my Paladin.  Fully rational & functional AND breeding an army of evil monster warriors is not even CLOSE to the line, if that even mattered at all.

*HACK*

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/1952/The-Minotaur?affiliate_id=1892600

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