I1 – Grave of the Green Flame

Posted on November 29, 2011 by Bryce Lynch

This is a solo module. It can be very tough in places. It has some editing problems. I have also played it more times than any other module I own, with the exception of Keep & Steading.

You are a lowly second level character. While traveling down the road you are ambushed by bandits! Waking up in an inn you find you have been looted. Oh the humanity! You are provided some sparse starting equipment and set off to bring justice to the bandits. The adventure is laid out in a format very similar to a Choose Your Own Adventure. The map is divided in to grids from A to GG. Each section is further divided numerically, A1, A2, A3 and so on.

The booklet has some issues with editing. Several of the paragraphs, especially in the later parts of the adventure, all refer to “paragraph X.” While normally this would be a Game Over condition for a Choose Your Own Adventure booklet, it’s not the case in this one. It’s pretty obvious form the map where the trail/path leads next so you just need to turn to that section. There was only the briefest of slight delay encountered during live play when this first popped up.

The adventure is a tough one. There’s a Shadow, encounters with multiple 1HD bandits, a double dose of killer frogs (they killed my kids, how … Moat House) a trio of zombies, and a 6th level wizard. These are going to be some very rough encounters for a 2nd level character flying solo. There are generally a nice variety of challenges presented: ranger tracking, thief sneaking and so forth. Some of the character classes and abilities will require a bit of on the fly adjudicating, none of which should be too tough. The adventure proper is a nice mix of elements. There’s a barrow mound, a crazed lizard man, ruined towers, bandit camps, mysterious fogs and so forth; just about every classic outdoor element is touched upon. I enjoyed it. My wife enjoyed it. My kids enjoyed it (although they complained about using Holmes instead of 4E. Philistines!) I eventually won, without cheating, using the mightiest character class of them all: Wizard. My 2 Hp self conquered where none others could … by Sleeping with extreme prejudice. We’ve played this AT LEAST 20 times.

And therein lies this modules special power: you can pick it up and play it. No prep work. No goofing around. Just pick it up and play it. I combined this with my Holmes “3d6 down the line, d6 weapons” rules for a <1 minute character roll-up. It takes more time to prep for Solitaire than it does this module! I would pull this out, we’d sit down and play. Just play. I don’t think I’ve been able to do that in 25 years, since high school or jr high. I’d DM and she’d play, or she’d DM and I’d play, the DM rolling for the monsters and reading the text. Same with the kids, I just doubled the number of monsters in each encounter. It was simple, it was IMMEDIATELY accessible, and therefore we’ve played the crap out of this thing.

There is a significant business opportunity being missed here. While we were hot & heavy in to this, right after GenCon, two friends came over. They game. While they were here I was struck with a thought: Why don’t we play D&D in these cases? We have 3 players and a DM, why not play? I’ll tell you why, because it’s a chore. Haul out the gear, prep/read the module, make characters, pick equipment, BLEEECH! The threshold is too high. It seems like it always easier to play something else. An adventure module like this one needs to be packaged in a small box with some pre-gens in it. Friends come over? Pull out the box and play D&D. No character prep time. No module prep time because it’s either CYOA or something very similar to that. You could toss in a very simple rules pamphlet, like MicroLite 74 or something, but that’s not the key. The key is the pre-gens and an adventure you don’t need to prep. Instant one shot fun!

Boxed text doesn’t have to be bad. This module uses it and has done more to get me playing more D&D than any other product  other than my first one ever: Holmes. I would LOVE to see more products like this. Being a solo module, this has a lot of lengthy text, however a DM version could have quite a bit less. If some serious thought went in to it then you could have a zero entry-barrier module with BRIEF but good boxed text and a couple of follow-up bullet points

“This is a moldy bedroom in disrepair.”

– Trap door under bed leads to D3.

– Green slime in pillows. AC12, HD:2 HP:4. 1d6 dam

– Locked safe behind picture on wall. Contains bag of coins. 100gp.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/263907/I1-Grave-of-the-Green-Flame?affiliate_id=1892600

Posted in Reviews | 6 Comments

The Heart of Glass

Posted on November 29, 2011 by Bryce Lynch

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

This is a city adventure. Several portions of the city are briefly described. The NPC’s are all related to the hook. The city has several factions; all those presented relate to the adventure presented.

Once there was a noble paladin. There were ‘issues’ and he was turned in to a vampire. Now he has to drink blood to survive, a situation he’s not altogether happy about. He’s learned about a magic item which should suppress his need & desire to feed. He rolls in to the town where it’s at and starts a thieves guild where one previously never existed. The freelancers are not happy about this and an underground war starts between the new guild and the old freelancers. He bolsters the guild by bringing in a group of assassins. Oh, and he’s got his vampire minions as well. On the other side is … well … not much of anyone. There’s a VERY high level thief and his buddy a wizard. The wizard had the artifact the vampire wanted and he launched a raid on her tower. She escaped, but left the artifact behind. The vampires are occupying her tower, waiting for her to return so they can force out the location of the item. In the middle of this are all the folks in the city. It was already a seedy place, and now getting increasingly chaotic from the underground thieves war AND the vampires prowling about. Pretty much everyone knows there’s a thieves war going on. Some few know about the assassins. Almost no one knows the vampires are prowling about. Hey, this sounds like a great time to add a PC party!

The book is arranged in three broad parts, each describing one part of the city. The various locations are described, along with the residents at those locations and what they know of the thieves, assassins, and vampires. There are about 40 or so locations described. Some are allied with the new thieves guild however many are unaligned or just show some sympathies to a particular faction. These cover various social classes from beggars to the merchants. There’s a four page summary of events at the start of the book as well as several appendices that contain many new monsters and magic items, as well as the assassin NPC class, rumor tables, new spells, a brief background on vampires in this game world, inn prices, and so forth. The amount of support material is decent and I appreciate its inclusion.

I see a couple of problems with this one. First, city adventures live and die by the atmosphere provided in the city. That atmosphere is largely provided by the cast of colorful characters in the city. This list is a tad short in Heart of Glass. Several of the NPCs have some meat to them however they tend to be a bit one-dimensional. I would have liked to have seen quite a few more relationships, particularly as they relate to events outside of the Heart of Glass storyline. I tend to judge city adventures by how much I like the city and how it can be reused outside of the main plot lines. That means the folks need some beef behind them. The main plots in this are integrated in to the text of the various building locations and NPC descriptions found in those locations. This makes it hard to follow what needs to happen to make the plot move along. A better organization for the main plot would have been appreciated.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/64121/Castles–Crusades-Heart-of-Glass?affiliate_id=1892600

Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

A8 – Forsaken Mountain

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Bryce Lynch

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

This is a linear story-based adventure in and around the Dream Sea, an astral plane like location. The players can’t win the movie that is taking place while they are hacking four encounters.

The most beautiful woman in the world (cursed, of course) fell in love with a bad guy her curse could not impact. She was eventually carried off by an enamored good guy during the climactic final battle. The good guy died in the Dream Sea area, and now his body and the pretty girl are there. The bad guy has just found out where his girlfriend is and how to get her back. The party must stop him! Only they can’t actually do that, the module doesn’t allow that. Yes, I know, I’m the DM and I can do anything I want. It still rubs me the wrong way. The module is upfront about things. It’s purpose is to introduce the party to a future bad guy. Things have to happen a certain way.

The characters run in to a contingent of the Bad Guys troops. After killing them all they find a note describing a current rescue attempt being made to free the girlfriend. This is accompanied by a magic portal to take them to the Dream Sea (a kind of astral plane type area) and some magic items they’ll need later, like a folding boat. If they follow the well marked path (KILL ORCS. READ NOTE. LOOT MAGIC. ENTER PORTAL.) then they are at the Dream Sea. They cross it and end up on an island with a mountain and a witch.  They talk to the witch. They need to make her angry enough to attack them, so she can get killed, or be nice to her. Either will cause a path to appear to the knights tomb. Anything else leaves them here. They go up the mountain trail and get attacked by 4 sets of killer vines. In the tomb they fight the knight. Killing him lets them go to the underworld. In there they find a group of arcs and people freeing the girlfriend. As the party shows up she is freed and walks though the portal, followed by the big name NPC’s present. Meanwhile the orcs and some lesser NPCs are dying at the hands of the PC’s. The party kills the orcs and acolytes and then goes home.

Feel free to toss in ‘allegorical’ in any of the above wherever it seems to fit. There’s not much room for deviation in this adventure. It’s only purpose seems to be to introduce the bad guy and his girlfriend to the PC’s, but in name only. There are some suggestions for encounters in the Dream Sea, but they are far too Tangerine Dream for my tastes. “Make the party travel as long as you wish.” “If they seem afraid of something then introduce it” It’s too bad, the backstory of the Dream Sea, and it’s gods, is actually pretty interesting. I wish there was more to do and it was less of a railroad.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/94946/Castles–Crusades-A8-Forsaken-Mountain?affiliate_id=1892600

Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

A7 – Under the Despairing Stone

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Bryce Lynch

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

This is a guardian/running the gauntlet module with four set pieces. The encounters are with four different demons, being well done and interesting. It’s also quite short and rather bland overall, except for the demons. It’s too contrived for me to use it, although the demons really are well done.

When The Evil One came to rule he found one of his so called peers hanging around. This “peer” pissed him off so The Evil One tricked him and had him locked up in an extra-dimensional prison. He set four demons in the prison as guards. Each day the demons each play their magical instruments in order to keep their charge locked away. The players need to bust in and keep the demons from playing. Theoretically, this can can be done in a method other than slaughtering them, although in reality these four guys do seem unusually committed to their eternal task. Hacking them is going to be rough, they get resurrected automatically every 48 hours. Oh, and the prison is on another plane, so once the payers go in they can’t get back out again without freeing the prisoner. While I like the world, this is all a bit too much contrivance for my tastes.

The prison complex is located under a giant floating rock and has about 18 keyed locations. It’s really just a symmetrical dungeon with four creatures in it, the demons. I really don’t like these sorts of maps. Yes, I know it was purpose built to house the prisoner, but still, I don’t like it. It may make sense, however this is an environment in which people throw giant fireballs from their hands … it doesn’t HAVE to make sense. In fact, a major portion of the fun is derived from it not making sense. The place has four objectives, the demons, and each demon has a small suite of rooms. This being a running-the-gauntlet type module, all four objectives must be achieved before the players win. The map is not LITERALLY linear however it might as well be.

Those four objectives ARE interesting. The demons are unique, both in form and in personality. They live in some nicely atmospheric environments, the like of which are seldom seen. There are WAY too many words used to describe their environments, however these four guys could never be considered dull. I shall describe but one to give you all a taste. Charlie is a demon. He’s always growing these mutant apendiges: a new arm over there, a new spleen over there, and so on. He’s an oozing, gooey mess. He’s also an intellectual who likes to read. He has his imps continually making new comfy chairs for him to sit in so he can enjoy sitting around for all eternity lounging and reading his books. He’s searching for the perfect comfy chair design, unfortunately his propensity to grow new random appendages in random places makes this difficult. As soon as he gets a new chair constructed that’s nice, and can hold his bulk, a new appendage will grow and cause him to have to construct a new chair. His chambers are covered with bloody goo and the remains of his limbs which have dropped off. The other three guys are just as interesting.

This module feels more like a 4E module than any other I’ve seen. “Here are four encounters.  Kill them and move on.” The rooms do have a few features to mess around with: a drinking horn, magic dust, and vials of goo/liquid/etc. Those are nice elements however they can’t by themselves make up for the sparseness and linearity of the adventure. It’s too brief, too spartan, and at the same time too verbose, using many many words to get to the same four encounters.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/89437/Castles–Crusades-A7-Beneath-the-Despairing-Stone?affiliate_id=1892600

Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

A6 – Of Banishment & Blight

Posted on November 22, 2011 by Bryce Lynch


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

An interesting concept overall. A dungeon in a frozen mountain ruled by a primordial entity who doesn’t really care, much, what happens to his supporters. There can be some tough decisions and interesting problems with a strong social twist in the middle of the combat.

I think we’re all aware that the gods made a couple of things before man. Dwarves, elves, ents and the like are the usual culprits. What about those entities that precede even the gods? Strangely, most trope doesn’t tend to cover this, except maybe the Greeks. In this adventure module the characters journey to a strange and fabulous place to seek out one of those entities, an elemental lord of frost, to ask a boon.

It appears that if your birthdate falls somewhere before “time begins” then you gain a certain perspective that others lack. That whole “1000 years of rule by the evil god Unklar” that just came to an end? That’s really just a bump. When you’re a primordial entity you just seem to care about other things. When Unklar come to power he cut a deal with the Frost Lord. He’d turn the world in to a long winter in exchange for the frost lord getting rid of things for him. That’s a good deal if you’re an evil god and you’re going to do those things anyway. Why piss off someone with UNMAKING runes? The Frost Lord also picked up some servants from the evil one. Unklar, the Dark Lord, hasn’t really been keeping up his end of the bargain since his downfall and banishment from this plane, so the Frost Lord is looking to make some changes to his retinue … if only the players knew that …

There are a couple of hooks to get the party in to the adventure. The most logical are the continuation of module A5, however the Frost Lord can UNMAKE anything, so any quest to get rid of something could be appropriate. The Frost Lord has a small village around his mountain. It’s full of people who are now immortal, as long as they stay within about a mile of the mountain lair. Most of them have been there a VERY long time and they, like the frost lord, have developed a certain perspective. They just don’t care about most of anything. The path up the unnaturally cold mountain takes the party past a gatehouse and seven guard towers. Each tower leads to a different portion of the mountain lair, and they all eventually interconnect. There are probably about 60 or so rooms scattered through the various areas.

The occupants fall in to three  general categories. First there’s the goblin servants. Wimpy and weak, they do a lot of running away. Second are the ogres and minor demons. These guys are evil and were sent here by the evil god to serve the Frost Lord. They serve in the roll of ‘Murderous Denizens bent on killing the party.’ Finally there are the long-term residents. These are the closest things the frost lord has to friends and have been with him since before the 1000 year reign of the evil god Unklar. These take the form of monsters, a naga, hag, rhemoraz, and ancient white dragon, however they are not immediately hostile. The Frost Lord doesn’t care about much anymore. You can kill his servents. You can take pretty much anything you want. You can even mess up his house (which his brother, the rock lord, made for him.) But man does he get pissed off if you killed his friends. This is a bit of a test of restraint for the party. Kill the dragon the treasure pile or ignore it? Is that a yawn or is the rhemoraz about to eat us? This situation is perfectly illustrated in one particular encounter. An ogre lord and naga queen are sitting in a dining room after dinner, talking. The Frost Lord just left, noting to both of them that change was in the air. The ogre knows this means he’s on the way out and the naga knows she’s not going anywhere. And … SCENE!

This is mostly a straight up exploratory dungeon and hack in a cold environment. There are a large number of empty rooms and the enemies are pretty much all ogres, demons (of a certain type) and winter wolves.  The number of weird and unusual elements for the party to play with are quite limited … and mostly limited to figuring out that killing everyone they meet is not a good idea. The dungeon layout is unusual … think 10 or 12 towers, with one floor and 5 or some rooms each, all interconnected to a central tower with a couple more floors. It’s not very complex, but is is something I’ve not seen before. I wish there would have been some weird fantasy elements. This would have been the perfect place to showcase them since this guy has been around A LONG time.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/64081/Castles–Crusades-A6-Banishment–Blight?affiliate_id=1892600

Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

A6 – Of Banishment & Blight

Posted on November 22, 2011 by Bryce Lynch

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

An interesting concept overall. A dungeon in a frozen mountain ruled by a primordial entity who doesn’t really care, much, what happens to his supporters. There can be some tough decisions and interesting problems with a strong social twist in the middle of the combat.

I think we’re all aware that the gods made a couple of things before man. Dwarves, elves, ents and the like are the usual culprits. What about those entities that precede even the gods? Strangely, most trope doesn’t tend to cover this, except maybe the Greeks. In this adventure module the characters journey to a strange and fabulous place to seek out one of those entities, an elemental lord of frost, to ask a boon.

It appears that if your birthdate falls somewhere before “time begins” then you gain a certain perspective that others lack. That whole “1000 years of rule by the evil god Unklar” that just came to an end? That’s really just a bump. When you’re a primordial entity you just seem to care about other things. When Unklar come to power he cut a deal with the Frost Lord. He’d turn the world in to a long winter in exchange for the frost lord getting rid of things for him. That’s a good deal if you’re an evil god and you’re going to do those things anyway. Why piss off someone with UNMAKING runes? The Frost Lord also picked up some servants from the evil one. Unklar, the Dark Lord, hasn’t really been keeping up his end of the bargain since his downfall and banishment from this plane, so the Frost Lord is looking to make some changes to his retinue … if only the players knew that …

There are a couple of hooks to get the party in to the adventure. The most logical are the continuation of module A5, however the Frost Lord can UNMAKE anything, so any quest to get rid of something could be appropriate. The Frost Lord has a small village around his mountain. It’s full of people who are now immortal, as long as they stay within about a mile of the mountain lair. Most of them have been there a VERY long time and they, like the frost lord, have developed a certain perspective. They just don’t care about most of anything. The path up the unnaturally cold mountain takes the party past a gatehouse and seven guard towers. Each tower leads to a different portion of the mountain lair, and they all eventually interconnect. There are probably about 60 or so rooms scattered through the various areas.

The occupants fall in to three  general categories. First there’s the goblin servants. Wimpy and weak, they do a lot of running away. Second are the ogres and minor demons. These guys are evil and were sent here by the evil god to serve the Frost Lord. They serve in the roll of ‘Murderous Denizens bent on killing the party.’ Finally there are the long-term residents. These are the closest things the frost lord has to friends and have been with him since before the 1000 year reign of the evil god Unklar. These take the form of monsters, a naga, hag, rhemoraz, and ancient white dragon, however they are not immediately hostile. The Frost Lord doesn’t care about much anymore. You can kill his servents. You can take pretty much anything you want. You can even mess up his house (which his brother, the rock lord, made for him.) But man does he get pissed off if you killed his friends. This is a bit of a test of restraint for the party. Kill the dragon the treasure pile or ignore it? Is that a yawn or is the rhemoraz about to eat us? This situation is perfectly illustrated in one particular encounter. An ogre lord and naga queen are sitting in a dining room after dinner, talking. The Frost Lord just left, noting to both of them that change was in the air. The ogre knows this means he’s on the way out and the naga knows she’s not going anywhere. And … SCENE!

This is mostly a straight up exploratory dungeon and hack in a cold environment. There are a large number of empty rooms and the enemies are pretty much all ogres, demons (of a certain type) and winter wolves.  The number of weird and unusual elements for the party to play with are quite limited … and mostly limited to figuring out that killing everyone they meet is not a good idea. The dungeon layout is unusual … think 10 or 12 towers, with one floor and 5 or some rooms each, all interconnected to a central tower with a couple more floors. It’s not very complex, but is is something I’ve not seen before. I wish there would have been some weird fantasy elements. This would have been the perfect place to showcase them since this guy has been around A LONG time.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/64081/Castles–Crusades-A6-Banishment–Blight?affiliate_id=1892600

Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

A5 – The Shattered Horn

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Bryce Lynch

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

This is an evil tower complex with an associated cave complex underneath. It does a fairly good job of recreating a sparsely populated evil tower, and has several trick/trap areas and a couple of nice weird elements. There’s a time limit associated with the adventure.

Do you recall the chapter/scene in The Return of the King where the hosts of Mordor empty the lands and pour out of the Black Gates to confront the armies of the west, the noble king, and the resplendent Gandalf the White? Do you know what my players would do when that happened? “Dude! No one is left to guard the treasure in the Black Tower! Let’s loot it!”

The fortress presented here was once a minor waypoint for a mighty evil empire. When the Dread Lord fell his minions were scattered. The current ruler of the tower has one claim to fame: When the Dark Lord fell he was still alive. He’s moved in to the tower and is gathering other forces to him. He intends to gather a great army and force his way south, reconquering the lands and paving the way for the Dread Lords return. Go Team Evil! As the party approaches the tower they notice a huge force of evil humanoids, a thousand at least,  pouring out of the gates, emptying the tower and it’s grounds.  It’s STRONGLY suggested that the party overhear a couple of the remaining guards mention something about the army coming back in 48 hours. “I’d like to do an appraise check on the master Palantir. How much?”

There’s a small wilderness adventure to get to the fortress. It’s quite heavy on humanoids, however this was the marshaling area for the dark lords troops. he encounters do have a little blurb associated with each one. They are not overly interesting however the effort is appreciated. For example, there’s a random number of goblins who can show up, however they only attack if they outnumber the party at least 3 to 1. There’s also a special encounter or two, like … The Flesh Pits. Oooo, that just sounds bad ass doesn’t it? Wandering hordes of flesh golems who kill things and dump the bodies in the pits they were created in. That’s pretty cool. There’s really not much to the encounter beyond that, although there is a great deal of text. That’s a good description for the entire adventure: interesting tidbits wrapped in a lot of text.

The maps for the tower complex remind me a lot of Dark Tower, by Judges Guild. I’m not sure why … maybe because the tower complex in this module is composed of multiple towers with internal connections between the the towers, with multiple stairs up and down. That’s really the only similarity, there are no ‘external dungeons’ like there are in Dark Tower. The maps also remind me a lot of those MERP supplements, Cirith Ungol or Camath Brin from Trollshaws. There are about 36 encounters in the towers and about eight more in the caverns underneath.

These towers have a lot more going on than those MERP supplements. Great flocks of ravens fly around. Giant bird statues do freaky things to PC’s who mess with them, and the souls of the dead all talking at once and driving players mad. Weird blood ink/ooze. There’s a lot of freaky stuff in this module and I. Love It. The tower is only sparsely populated, unlike many of the previous modules. I suspect this is primarily because of the limited time: with only 48 hours available the party is going to have to move it, and large numbers of creatures in the towers are not going to allow that. There’s a nice selection of freaky magic items present as well, and quite a bit of treasure for parties who can cart it off in 48 hours. Most of the encounters will deal with evil humanoids of one type or another, with not too many being powerful.  The bad guy is just a wizard of sixth level. He’s got some hefty magic items, but if the party find him without his orken guard then he’s probably going to go down fast. I believe “Kill the MU first, and fast.” is a universal piece of wisdom.

It’s an evil tower, full of evil humanoids. That’s not a recipe I generally fond on. The weird components, tricks, and freaky stuff, combined with the timed element, really work together. I suspect that the PC’s will talk for a long time to come about that tower with the freaky stuff they looted, just before the army returned.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/59841/Castles–Crusades-A5-The-Shattered-Horn?affiliate_id=1892600

Posted in Reviews | 1 Comment

A4 – Usurpers of the Fell Axe

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Bryce Lynch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is available on DriveThru.

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

Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

A3 – The Wicked Cauldron

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Bryce Lynch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is available on DriveThru.

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

Posted in Reviews | 1 Comment

A2 – The Slag Heap

Posted on November 19, 2011 by Bryce Lynch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is available at DriveThru.

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

Posted in Level 2, Reviews, The Best | 5 Comments