H1 – Six Feet Under

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Bryce Lynch

Something is not quite right at the graveyard. Old and unused, with the exception of those previously interned, the graveyard has recently become the subject of fear and conjecture. Strange noises and mysterious figures have been reported by those attempting to visit the site. Now rumors have surfaced of an ancient barrow system is to blame. It will take a band of brave adventurers to discover what lies Six Feet Under!

A short little romp through a nicely developed little scene, good for an evening or two of fun adventuring.

Have you ever been part of a D&D party that’s gotten in to trouble? Not just your normal every day kind of D&D trouble but rather the RUN AWAY! and KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!! kind of trouble that looks for certain like a TPK? That’s what’s going on in this module, however this time it’s not the party that’s in trouble but rather an NPC party. I’m happy to say that much fun will be derived from it!

The setup and hooks here are simple: there’s a graveyard that full up and therefore unused except for the occasional visitor. Strange lights have been seen recently. The party will either stumble upon it or be hired to investigate. Not the strongest or most imaginative hooks, or the most original hook or setting, but there’s a good twist involved. It seems that there’s a band of grave robbers at work. They’ve been tunneling around under the graveyard and digging up the graves from the underside in order to loot them. So, not really a band of evil necromancers but rather some lazy greedy goons operating a Paint Your Wagon style ruse to Make Money Fast. So far they are doing pretty well and have looted more than a few graves and mausoleums. They get a little careless now and then, which accounts for the lights the party sees. Then the party shows up and things fall apart pretty fast …

The robbers have a look out that spots the party and the bandits stop work and keep quiet. Well, for the most part, I mean they do have some time to kill, so they open a door they had not yet looted … only to reveal a major undead baddie and his undead minions! RUN AWAY! KILL IT WITH FIRE! And thus starts our little madcap adventure. While the party is investigating the graveyard and poking around in the tunnels the robbers are getting slaughtered and making a last stand. I find both the premise (Grave Robbers!) and the In Medias Res portion nice twists. I’ve always enjoyed a kind of living breathing dungeon that has things going on in it. Walking in on someone looting a tomb, or someone making dunner or repairing his boots. This makes it seem like the dungeon has a life outside of the parties action and that they are not just waiting around for the party to show up and *hack* them. It’s also pretty nice that we get to see an NPC party. These were always staples in earlier games and it’s nice to see the party encounter another set of murder hobo’s.

The idea is that the party will kick around the graveyard for awhile, perhaps hearing some sounds from underneath, until they eventually find the lookout and the passage to the underground tunnels. This first portion of the adventure has a few interesting touches. There’s a random table for determining what the party find if they start digging up graves and looting mausoleums, as well as a couple of nice encounters with creatures that have their own motivations. For example, behind a barred crypt is a wight that just wants out so he can take revenge on his family. He’s no interest at all in fighting the party, just escape. Or a spider that’s just lairing in a building while it hunts around the graveyard. OMG! Creatures that are not solely intent on fighting and eating the party! WTF was the designer thinking! This is a welcome and refreshing bit of naturalistic style that I enjoy seeing. There are a couple of other freaky little non-combat encounters as well for the party to investigate as well. All of the the text tends to be on the wordy side, with only 2-4 encounters per page, however they do deliver.

Underneath the graveyard the party will find the tunnels the robbers have been digging and using. Oh, and the signs of a slaughter. Recall that the undead have just gotten loose and are currently eating/attacking/hunting the bandits. There are three or four notable encounters in the tunnels, all of which deal with the undead having just fed or with them in the process of attacking the evil party. You get the sense of a sense of chaos and desperation as the encounters unfold. The module has 28 total encounter areas on a rather simplistic map and should be a good for a nice evening or two adventuring.

On the down side, the encounter descriptions feature boxed text and are a little wordy for my tastes. I always find the boxed text adds more confusion because I can never quickly and easily find out what’s going on in the room. The gems, jewelry and magic items are a little generic for my tastes as well. “50 gp gem” and “+1 sword” are the norm for module writers however I like a little more details on what the party is finding. It’s a simple thing but adds a lot to the experience of playing.  There are a few new magic items, three I believe, which I do greatly appreciate, as well as two new monsters. This is great because it keeps the party guessing; they never know what to expect when the monster didn’t just come out of the Monster manuel. There’s also the gnolls. I’m not a big fan of humanoids in modules. In this case they seem to be a stand in for “tougher than normal bandits”, in which case I would have preferred to see some bandits who are tougher than normal. I believe that throwing in humanoids as monsters waters down the term ‘monster.’ I want my party screaming RUN AWAY! and KILL IT WITH FIRE! when they see monsters, and humanoids just don’t provoke that.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/263899/H1-Six-Feet-Under?affiliate_id=1892600

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BHS3 – The Shadowed Keep

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Bryce Lynch

An intrepid band of adventurers brave the frigid wilderness of the vast Northern Territories in search of an evil artifact known as the Bone-Hilt Sword, and some only to satisfy their thirst for wealth and treasure. But will they survive the armies of undead, dragons, and creatures of the cold northern lands?

This is a wonderful adventure with an almost dream-like quality. It’s a Fantastic Location and Epic Quest done OSR style and framed by a high quality layout. This is an excellent offering from John Kramer and his Usherwood Publishing.

Zowie Wowie! This module reminds me a bit of an old campaign I once ran. Villages and towns were of the worst sort. Full of the poor and diseased, covered with mud and dirt, barely eeking out a living. Just off the path the glens seemed brighter, the dales mistier and the colors more vivid. It was clear you were somewhere else. It is that feeling of ‘now I’m someplace else’ that this module does an excellent job conveying. The players are going someplace special, someplace Evil. The location feels like someplace special and the encounters leading up to it have an almost dreamlike quality to them. There is a definite feeling of transition from the normal worlds of man to this Other Place. Now understand that there is no actual plane-hopping involved; this is all just a normal overland trip from a village to the Shadowed Keep. The caves where the first two installments took place were full of evil humanoids but they felt like were of this world. The Shadowed Keep though is more of a supernatural force of entropy and evil. It _feels_ like a place of power and evil, and the journey there feels different because of that.

There are couple of hooks provided. The most obvious is if this is a part of campaign play and the party is searching for The Bone Hilt. This object has been referenced in several past modules however this would be the first module in which the party is actively taking part in that hook. There is another hook in which the party hears the story of a band of adventurers who journeyed to this Shadowed Keep and never came back. I have a personal distaste of the word ‘Adventurers’ since it implies a high fantasy world setting of which I do not approve. I do, however, approve of the party hearing stories of other travelers, thugs, mercenaries and the like who went places and never returned. I like the sense of history that it implies.

There are three encounter areas on the way to the Shadowed Keep. They can all be avoided however they also all have an almost dream-like feeling to them. You get the sense that the party is Going Somewhere Special in the encounters. The first is a snowy village. Imagine a village sitting nestled in a forest at the base of some mountains. As you approach over the top of a hill you can see through the trees that something is not right. It’s very quiet, there is no activity, and several buildings are burnt. A snow has fallen which hides most signs of the massacre that that has taken place however the interiors are full of of the evidence: mutiliated corpses, hung bodies, burnt victims and the like. There was a cruelty behind this massacre that one doesn’t generally see described. It’s not all that graphic however you do get the sense that of a palpable EVIL behind these actions. It’s very very well done and extremely evocative. The other two encounters, a graveyard and a guarded pass, are in much the same vein, as if the valley in which the Keep sits and the keep proper. The ruler is undead, and this is an undead king done right. There is a feeling of decay and he commands both undead and living forces in a haphazard way, as if he’s not trying at all. I could go on for paragraphs on the evocative natures of the encounters and settings. The designer does a superb job of creating evocative settings in which I can then fill in with my own imagination. This is exactly what I’m looking for.

The layout is top notch, as is all Usherwood Publishing modules. (See my review of the Shattered Skull for more information on this topic.) I’m not sure anyone does a layout or organization better than Usherwood. John Kramer, the designer of this module and owner of Usherwood, is a layout and design guy for his day job and it shows. There are several new monsters for the party to encounter and the gems & jewelry are detailed in a nice way, with descriptions for each. About half the magic items are given extra attention and/or detail in some way, which I really appreciate as well. It helps turn a good adventure in to a great one when you can provide that extra detail. It does feel a little heavy on the magic items, this being a modules for levels 3-5. That may be mitigated somewhat by players using an old school style of not fighting every monster and avoiding many rooms & encounters. The maps are top notch an interesting, if not very complex, and there is a section for NPC’s and pre-gens, as well as several pages that the DM can use for an adventure log.

As far as I know, Kramer has done Ychyrn the Tyrant, The Shattered Skull, The Shadowed Keep, and Arachnophobia! All four are top notch modules and you should have them in your collections.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/83278/The-Shadowed-Keep-PDF?affiliate_id=1892600

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UA2 – The Awakening

Posted on February 4, 2012 by Bryce Lynch

The dreaded villoi have been awakened from their centuries-long slumber by an evil greater even than themselves. Can your party of intrepid adventurers stop the combined menace before all the lands are over-run? Enter the lands west of the infamous Blood Pass to uncover the secret, and thwart The Awakening.

This module has several flashes of brilliance however the individual encounters tend to be very difficult with no options offered other than combat.

The central concept of this module is rather interesting. In ages past insect-men invaders from another dimension/plane set up several hives and attempted to conquer the land. After failing they went in to a hibernation. Recently one group was awakened by a powerful devil. They formed a mutual pact for greater evil and are now trying to wake their brethren. This appeals to me; far too often non-humans are just depicted as humans with pointy ears, or short humans with furry feet, or humans with pig faces. A truly alien species with alien motivations and an alien culture is refreshing. Unfortunately … these are just humans with insect shells This is a major opportunity lost. In the end the insect-men form another dimension have inscriptions over doorways, cleric classes, and act just like normal humanoids who are all too human. Another example of this are their spears. There’s a small insect that lives in the head and when it hit the insect break off and burrows in to the targets body, doing extra damage each round for three rounds. That’s pretty frigging cool. But that’s where its left at. This is a theme with this designer: there are some very imaginative elements that are surrounded by plot and mechanical elements that are less than stellar, and in many cases a major turn-off.

The hook here is a brief city/town adventure. The party runs in to some insect-men in a local sage shop and are led to a more knowledgable sage by a note in one of their pockets. That leads to the parties journey to the alien hive and it’s extermination. Letters on alien insect-men are lame. Sage shops (MULTIPLE sage shops!) are lame. Shops selling scrolls of Heal, Restoration and Limited Wish are lame. This sort of high fantasy style is major turn off for me. I don’t like this sort of magical economy nonsense. I know we’re talking about a game where guys throw fireballs, but I can’t get past the high fantasy magic shop style. I LOATHE it. The insect-men speaking common and carrying a letter are major detractors from their alien nature.

The alien hive looks a lot more like a spaceship then a hive. It has the usual “you cant teleport or passwall or dimension door in” element that is so popular with this designer. The encounters here are a mixed batch of insect-men, devils, and ogres. There are a whole lot of “they attack immediately” and “they fight to the death” type encounters present. That combined with the limited map options means that this is really just a straight-forward hack. There are a couple of puzzles and quite a few traps, too many of which feel arbitrarily deadly. Too many of the encounters are full of excessive and unneeded details which just bog the encounters down. This is combined with encounter rooms that don’t feel alien, but rather like just another high-fantasy barracks room.

The module has excellent production values, as all Usherwood titles do. There are beautiful maps, pre-gens, an appendix of histories, and so on. Unfortunately the flashes of brilliance are marred by the high fantasy setting and encounters that feel too much like one of those deathtrap dungeons I used to design when I thought it was player vs. GM. I like Save or Die, difficult encounters and deadly traps however there are just too many of them in this and I get a very adversarial sense from the writing style. Not for me.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/56463/The-Awakening?affiliate_id=1892600

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The Rebel Faction

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Bryce Lynch

Well over a century ago, six noble houses from the dark elf city Dar Multai grew tired of the incessant, petty political maneuverings of the seven other noble houses in the city. They eventually discovered a long-abandoned dark elf city organized around the worship of an elder, largely forgotten god in the direct opposition to the Spider Goddess. They are now poised to declare war …

If you can’t find TSR module D3, Vault of Drow, then this would serve as a substitute in a pinch. It lacks some of the charm of that product, especially the diverse inhabitants of the city, and has a certain style that I don’t enjoy. it does however have a few truly bizarre creatures in it, if you can make it the end.

The hook to this module is simple enough, if a bit implausible: while out drinking the party is approached by three dark elves who want to hire the party to find the location of a group of dark elf raiders. This rebel faction no longer worships the spider queen and has been causing a great deal of trouble. They have a base somewhere in the under dark but the other dark elves can’t find it. For this the party gets paid 3,000 coins. The party sets off in to the caverns while the DM examines a map much like the one from D1. The whole module is a bit of an homage to D1-3. The wandering monster table for this section is a bit disappointing. They tend to be a bit on the small side for my tastes and the usual ‘notes’ that accompany an Usherwood adventure are not really utilized very well. In the past they gave some indication of what the creature was doing, as kind of help to the DM’s imagination. This module presents then more a ‘additional wandering monster rules’ such as ‘Male or Female?’ for the dark elf patrols. The monsters in this module all tend to attack on sight, which is a bit of a disappointment. In fact one of the rooms, a barracks, has a group of dark elves asleep, in their armor and weapons at their side, ready to spring up to attack the party when they enter. This is indicative of the style that don’t enjoy; a kind of ‘gimp the party’ style that appears in many other places as well.

The party will eventually find a passage that leads elsewhere. At least I hope they find it: it’s very well hidden (only 1 in 10 chance of elves finding it) and yet the rest of the adventure can’t proceed until the party DOES find it. The groups first challenge will be getting past the guard post. It’s a wall with towers built across the tunnel, with a permanent true seeing at it’s base, manned by multiple F7 guards, two F7/U12 wizards and a F7/C10 commander. Their AC’s hover around -5 with HP in the 60’s. They intelligently summon help via teleports if the fight is going against them. There are multiple glyphs of warding on the doors which require a STR 75 to open. Our parties success looks doubtful, especially if they are using the pregens provided. Gordo the F4/T8 halfling has an AC of 8. Richard the 11th level paladin has 35HP and a mighty AC of 3. It’s very unlikely that any group could make it past this encounter, and there is no way in hell that the pre-gens could.

The passage leads to a cavern with the usual drow city style. Ultraviolet glows, lichens for light, a noble quarter for the great houses, a small slum for the commoners, slave and lizard pens, a mushroom garden, etc. Oh, and the great temple, gotta have a great temple The party can, and perhaps should, bug out when they find the guard post. They have fulfilled the letter of their contract and can collect their pittance of a reward. Screwing with a city of dark elves is not going to turn out well, and the other faction is just not offering enough.

One of the interesting thing about D3 was the many and varied factions in the Vault. This made it possible to get some role-playing in and tackle the problem of the Vault from a variety of different angles. Ally with another house, guild, or faction, sneak about, pretend to be an evil party, etc. That element of factions is completely missing from this. There is no vibrant city the way there was in D3, just a massive number of overly-powerful dark elves who all attack on sight. UN. COOL.

There’s nothing really interesting going on in this vault. The encounters are a bit dull and are generally given with far too much backstory. I also get a whiff of ‘trying to be naughty’, meaning that the depictions of torture and the like have a decidedly “oh, look, I put a sex devil in the torture chamber and she likes to DO IT” feel to them. A kind of being dirty for the sake of being dirty and attracting attention. I should point out that I had no problems with Carcosa and thought that The Book of Erotic Fantasy was very well done, so I’m not being a prude. It just seems … forced? in this module.

Let’s cover one more item before I get to some highlights. I mentioned above the ‘gimp the party’ style of dungeon design that is present. This involves things like doors slamming shut when you enter a room and having the door double wizard lock behind you. Not being able to teleport, passwall, dimension door, is another item that makes an appearance, as well as undead turning at a vastly different level. Footlockers are generally trapped with wizard locks AND fireball spells. Things that can be played with (Lets put on the priests robes!) are invariably magically trapped. This is all a lot of nonsense. The party presumably earned their teleports so let them use them. The prevalence of double wizard locked doors is absurdly high, as are the locked footlockers. No wonder the guards have to sleep in armor with their weapons are their side, once accident during a drill and they’d all be dead from fireballs or poison! If the party takes the time to discover the guard rotation schedule, and where they sleep, and then tries to murder them in their beds then they should have a fair shot at it. The nonsense in this module only serves to reenforce one particular style of play: hack the monster.

The end goal of the module, if the party does not follow my advice about retreating at the guard tower, is to find the temple of the Elder Eye. That’s where the few good things in the module show through. There’s a very nice tentacle golem and some slime/ooze golems as well. The actually avatar of the god is cool also, a giant eye floating over an alter with a bundle of nerve endings hanging down behind it. Those are all pretty cool, I just wish they were surround with a more evocative and less gimpy environment.

Note: The designer tends to reuse some of the elements I dislike the most. The guard tower has appeared in another form in Advanced Adventures #11 – The Conquerer Worm, published by Expeditious Retreat Press. Doors that slam shut behind the party and double wizard lock, as well as “you can’t teleport here” structures appear in modules AA#4, AA#9 , AA#14, AA#18. The Nameless City module, by Mythmere Press, also contains those elements.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/78837/The-Rebel-Faction?affiliate_id=1892600

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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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