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The Secret of the Callair Hills is a small 12 page adventure for the OSRIC system. This is a stand-alone adventure for 4-6 characters of levels 3-5. It should be fairly simple to drop this in to any standard fantasy world. The major opponents are undead and some vermin, with a few wild animals and bandits thrown in on the Wandering Monsters table. Goblins and Ogres also show up in the wandering table. While this is certainly personal preference, I like the creature allotment; it mostly makes sense to me. Undead, animals, vermin and humans are what I like to see liberally scattered about. The humanoids only show up on the wandering table so I can excuse their presence. We get one new monster in the back; a half page description of a level 5 Barrow Lord undead beastie. Again, this is a good thing: bad guys should be new & unique to add a good deal of mystery to the game. There’s no easier way to freak out a PC then drop in a new creature without unknown attacks & vulnerabilities.

Twelve pages isn’t a lot. An ad and the license take up two pages in the back and one more is taken up with the table of contents. Another is burned by the maps, leaving us eight pages, the same size as TSR G1/Steading of the Hill Giant Chief. Quite a challenge. We first get about a half page of history and background on the situation. I appreciate this brevity; I don’t need a five page history of what our bad guy had for breakfast and the twelve empires that rose & fell prior to the PC’s showing up. And as for that bad guy and history …

It immediately put me on guard. I don’t need social conscious shoved down my throat during my fantasy RPG. Recycler orcs, evil zookeepers and noble savages belong in Sophie’s Choice the RPG, not my fantasy RPG. I must now eat my words since this time it does fit nicely in to the plot. You see we are faced with a group analogous to the American Indians. Noble savages who do great things until the evil settlers show up and desecrate their burial grounds with agriculture. Our noble savages are wiped out when they protest. See? My knee-jerk is an eye-roll. A thousand years later new settlers show up on the abandoned land and start farming. Eventually they start to show up murdered in their farms. Nothing is taken and nothing is pillaged. We’re given about a half-page of information on getting the PC’s involved; a couple of hooks and a sample murder-cabin/farm.

The adventure proper is then launched in to. It works out to be a wilderness with scattered farms (working, abandoned, and murdered) with abandoned towers and burial mounds/barrows. There’s a simple abandoned fort and the evil bad guys barrow as well. The PC’s will spend their time crawling over the wilderness poking in to these objects. The core wilderness is about 23 miles wide, with the ‘barrowfields’ being about 12 miles wide. The wandering table is a little sparse in my opinion for this size of table, especially when wanderers are checked for every hour during the day (1 on a d6) and every hour during the night (1 on a d8.) Nighttime encounters will only be with lesser barrow spirits, of which there are a limited number. My opinions here may be flawed, which may come out in actual play.

Eventually the players will stumble on the main barrow and confront the ancient hero who still guards his land. If the PC’s have been respectful of the other barrows, and can speak his language (the mage DID memorize a comprehend languages spell, didn’t they? It’s OSR so they should have … ) then our Barrow Lord can be convinced that he is mistaken in his murderous quest and things can end peacefully. In all likelihood though the PC’s didn’t realize they were dealing with wronged noble savages and looted the tombs, which is just gonna piss off our Barrow Lord and force him to attack in a blind rage. Oh well, that’s what they make longswords & oil for!

I can’t decide about this product. On a very superficial level it’s a pretty bland wilderness adventure with a bad guy in a small lair at the end. But then again, the bag guy isn’t actually bad, he’s just misunderstood. That, along with a realistic (and brief) portrayal of barrows, is interesting. Then again, by ‘misunderstood’ I actually mean ‘running around murdering innocent farmers’ and I’m playing an RPG, not performing a historical LARP. It may be interesting however to insert some of the barrows from the MERP supplement ‘Bree & the Barrow Downs’ in to this to provide some more flavor & color.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/92769/Advanced-Adventures-19-The-Secret-of-the-Callair-Hills?affiliate_id=1892600

This is the second adventure in the Splinters of Faith adventure path and is for a group of characters from 2-4 level. The overall quest is restore an object known as the Scepter of Faiths. Each step along the way the party visits the temple of different faith with adventure associated with it, and I assume there will be a couple of more at the end during the which the big bad wolf/Evil High Priest is confronted. The temple portion is associated with the adventure path however the associated adventure it independent of the the adventure path, allowing it to be dropped in as a one-shot.

The module is about 20 pages long and is designed for a party of 2-4th level characters. There’s a license and add in the page, which long with the credits and table of contents eat up five pages. That leaves us five pages for the description of the temple compound, 2.5 for the wilderness description and background, and six pages of keyed encounters.

What we have is a dwarven temple compound. It’s a circular fortress temple, and, being dwarves, they have a mystic forge. The forge is supposed to have four mystical magic items, one for each element, however two are missing. One has been missing for a very long time and one has just recently gone missing. The second one is instrumental for the adventure path, and is the basis for the wilderness adventure that composes the second half of the module. The temple is clearly well laid out, from the map design, however the temple is rather blandly described. The theft of the mystic flame, the second item, involves a couple of clues in the temple, but again, it’s a little tenuous and a little bland. Fortunately, this turns around in the wilderness adventure.

The second half is a journey through a swamp to find the thief and the mystic flame. The swamp calls for a wandering monster check every three hours. a d20 is rolled and a result of 1-13 indicates an encounter, with about three of those being rather benign. The party will cover about one swamp hex an hour on rafts, so about every three hexes there will be a wanderer roll, with abut 50-50 chance of encountering monsters. The swamp is also rather large, covering a full map page, meaning the party will spend a lot of time in the swamp and hit lots of wanderers. The map is sprinkled with encounters, some brief and some more in-depth. Notably, a keyed encounter is missing from the map, Giant Frogs, which is the only serious error. Also, notably, is that about of the dry land islands in the swamp are populated with crocodiles. 8 crocs on each of them. Each croc is 3 HD. Ouch! I hope the party knows when run! I don’t really have a problem with overpowering encounters, especially in OSR modules, in fact it’s probably a plus.

There are two areas detailed in a bit more depth. One is a sunken temple complex with some undead in it. It’s briefly described, but with a little GM imagination it could prove a creepy place to explore, even though it only has six or so rooms. The second are the mud-tunnels of the giant crayfish, where our evil bad guy is hanging out. I have to say, this fires my imagination. The encounters are not really evocative in either place, but the description are: “sunken temple” and “mud tunnels of the giant crayfish” are both great encounter descriptions.

This is a solid adventure, and the journey through the swamp is nice. With a little GM work to fire some additional details in the encounters then it could be upgraded to a great & memorable adventure.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/85082/Splinters-of-Faith-2-Swords-and-Wizardry-Edition?affiliate_id=1892600

Q2 Eruptor’s Vengeance is the second in the Pacesetter Games Quick-Play series. These series of modules are meant to be played in a single session or two. This particular adventure is for a group of characters from levels 2-4. This particular module has 14 pages, plus two more usable pages from the insides of the module cover. We cover contains a map of the cave system on one page and the stats for the various monsters on the second page. There’s a page of ads, one for the license, another that cover the table of contents and credits, another that has a page of 7 pre-gens, and finally one that contains a write-up of two new monsters. That leaves us nine pages for the core of the module, one of which is background information and another of which is the pre-cave encounter. That leaves us five pages for the 8 keyed encounters.

The adventure is a simple one that is chock full of possibilities: a dragon just died. The party, drawn by the smell of death in the air, stumbles upon the scene of a great battle in the wilderness. A dragon lies dead surrounded by the bodies of the group that killed it, and it looks like it JUST happened. Like any good vultures the characters will certainly search the bodies and find there a map to a dragons lair. The very dragon that lies dead in front of them. At this point every PC’s eyes should be glazed over with GREED. An unguarded dragon hoard … their for the taking. The two new creatures include a Dropper, a pointed stone-like creature which waits it’s entire life on a ceiling to drop on something walking underneath. Finally there is a Drake, a shape-changing reptilian creature that comes in different colors.

While there are only eight keyed encounters they are very well done and imaginative. If I take the definition liberally then there are seven or eight tricks/traps, including an interesting betrayal that I found particularly evocative. For it’s size this is a rather interesting little crawl, thanks in large part to the traps & tricks that generally do double duty in rooms. A room may have a ‘normal’ encounter and then it also has the trick/trap also, which usually doesn’t happen during the core encounter. You don’t need to be worried about the hoard unbalancing the campaign; there’s a good explanation for the reduced amount.

This is a great little adventure full of OSR spirit. A good premise, tricks, traps, factions, the module would have it all if the map was more complex, but then it wouldn’t be a quick-play module, would it? I have no qualms recommending this.
Let me tack on this: What if you, the DM, respec’d this to be for a group of 1st level characters and placed the most awesome dragon hoard ever? One that makes Smaugs look like a kobold purse? At LEAST four of every magic item in the 1E DMG, and several artifacts to boot. Of course, as the dwarves learned, news of a dragons demise spreads rapidly, and every wannabe demi-god and demon-prince is going to hunt the PC’s to find out where the hoard is … You’ve got riches & items beyond the dreams of avarice, but can you keep them? Now THAT’s a campaign!

Q1 The Screaming Templa is the first in the Quick Play series from Pacesetter Games & Simulations. The Quick Play modules are meant to be played in a single gaming session, or at most two, and thus are short & sweet. This particular module has 14 pages, of which about 4.5 describe the 10 keyed locations. There’s a pages of preg-gens, a page for license, a page for the credits and table of contents, one for the new monsters, and about 2.5 of introductions & background. The module cover has a map on one page and a list of the monster stats on the other page. The adventure is written for characters level 2-4, with 6-10 total party levels.

One night a large warehouse burns down in the city slums. A short while later a temple appears overnight on the same spot. No one ever enters or leaves, and on some nights mysterious screaming is heard coming from the temple. A few months later the PCs roll in to town and presumably investigate after hearing some rumors. Yes, there’s a rumor table, which is always appreciated and almost a necessity for an OSR module.

You’re not going to play this are you? If so you should stop reading now.

It turns out that the temple was constructed on another site and then reassembled by a large force of laborers on this site in one night. It’s lightly constructed to appear like stone but is actually made of wood & plaster. The entire place is the front for a fence, who’s wizard buddy flies in on a screaming large bat, the sole new monster, every week or so to pick up the next load of goods. They’ve been paying off the town officials to avoid official investigations. The modules set up is interesting, as if the construction material; I look forward to guards punching/stabbing through the plaster walls to get at PCs who think they are safe, kind like that scene in Bladerunner. The Doomsday device is also interesting and should provide some issues for the PCs. There do seem to be some logic problems though. The fence draws a lot of attention to himself by hiding out in the mysterious temple built overnight. It’s essentially just his house, so why not just use a warehouse? In addition, no one in the scared local neighborhood saw or heard the large gang constructing the temple temple that one fateful evening?

The module starts nice however I ‘feel’ like it dies out a bit on imagination front after that, even though this is clearly not the case. The Wizard Riding a Giant Screaming Bat should provide some interesting moments, as should the Doomsday device. These two encounters, combined with the nice premise and the ‘single session’ nature of the module should provide a nice short self contained adventure the next time your’s PCs enter a large city.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/263912/Q14-The-Screaming-Temple-and-other-Deaths?affiliate_id=1892600

This is the first in a series of modules from Pacesetter which promise to be sequels to some the classic adventures of old. Many of the old products had adventure hooks and paths that lead off to other areas for the DM to expand the adventure. As the name implies, this module is a follow-up to the old TSR product B1 – In Search of the Unknown. Recall that in that product the dungeon complex, and a fantastic on it was, was constructed by Rogahn the Fearless & Zelligar the Unknown. Those fine fellows were mentioned as having left on a quest and never coming back. In looting their dungeon the party has discovered journals which detail the duo’s plan to set off and give chance to the barbarians they had been fighting. The party must set off on the trail of the find a ruined city, and rumors of wealth. The tie-in to the old module is a good one however the hook is a bit lacking. “Wouldn’t it be nice to find out what happened to those two guys who’s house we just looted?”

The journey to the ruined city in the barbarian lands will take about 10 days, which implies that the first B1 was really on the edge of the civilized lands. There are no wandering encounters on the overland journey however there are three pre-set encounters. The party will meet a rabid hill giant and a group of giant snakes, as well as a group of evil dwarves pretending to be nice. This last encounter can give the party a map which leads the to the small tomb of a forgotten king. Another optional encounter is a small outpost now inhabited by giant spiders. Each of these can be challenging encounters for a group of 2nd-4th level characters, but give the nature of wilderness encounters, lots of time to rest and recover, they should be manageable. In particular I like the idea of the dwarves having a small hook to their own adventure. This kind of detail is what can make encounters come to life. You’re not just hacking down a random group of humanoids, they had a reason to be where they were. There are a few environmental tricks/traps in the crypt and the outpost, but for the most part they are straightforward encounters.

The majority of the adventure will be set in the ruined city of Shard. The area surrounding the great spire has been divided in to eight zones, each with their own inhabitants. Scattered throughout the zones are the rings the party need to gain entrance to the spire. The zones themselves are not too large, maybe a thousand feet on a side, however they are large enough to allow the party to sneak about, scout, and not necessarily have a pitched battle with the inhabitants of each of the zones. Each of the zones could be thought of as a a decent-sized lair dungeon/stronghold and would probably serve as modules in their own right, give their size & detail. There’s a zone of orcs, goblins, gnolls, and cultists, along with a a couple of abandoned zones full of beasties and a rogue druid who all of the other zones fear. This concept is one that I like. By providing different factions the party is not immediately forced to fight everyone they meet. They all have their own goals. The party can explore, negotiate, trade, scout, and fight pitched battles. In some ways it reminds me of one of the favorite FPS’s, Far Cry. It would give you a goal “get from where you are now to that point way over there” and put some obstacles in your way. You could sneak around the enemy encampments, take them out with stealth, run through like crazy, or kill everything in sight. The freedom this gives a player leads to some of what makes RPG’s special. Again, these humanoids have other motivations than being sword-fodder for the PC’s and this detail will lead to memorable encounters, even if the party does hack them down later. Since the zones tend to be lived-in places there are not a lot of tricks/traps, although there are a few hidden places and secrets for the party to root out, including at least one major one.

Gaining access to the central spire will lead the party to the ruined city underneath. This is very briefly described and really only has one major encounter area: The Dead Temple. Within this environment the party will face many undead and learn the fate of Rogahn and Zelligar. Again, it’s a pretty straight-froward exploration with not much in the way of tricks & traps. Learning the fate of the two adventurers should provide a pretty sweet payoff, especially if the group os familiar with the original B1. Finally, the climax of the adventure is a pretty good one, describing one of those classic situations that people in books usually get in to. It is ABSOLUTELY not a railroad though. Almost any party should recognize what is going on and the decisions they have to make, and their part in what unfolds, should make for a memorable encounter in the best of the OSR tradition. I hesitate to say too much however I will say the dynamic due were pretty bad ass, even if they were only 8th level,  and and a time stop was involved.

This is a pretty good adventure and it should fill up quote a few sessions. While the trick/trap quotient is not very high, it must be said that this is not really a traditional dungeoncrawl either. There’s a lack of wandering monsters also, however there are a few new monsters and magic items. It would have been nice to see a few more, or have the ones that are new be more of a focus of the adventure, but I think I can forgive that in a low-level module. I enjoyed the living feel of the module inhabitants as well as some of the side detail, such as the dwarves treasure map. The potential for a clever party to live by it’s wits is always appreciated. It does a good job of being a sequel without making that the entire focus of the adventure or being too close to the original product. I can certainly recommend it.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/263887/B1-Legacy-of-the-Unknown?affiliate_id=1892600

This module revolves around the retrieval of 2 powerful magical daggers, called the Kingslayers, and then the attempt to destroy them. The daggers are intelligent magical items and don’t want to be destroyed. This little twist, so obvious from LOTR, actually surprised me a little. While the 1E DMG has some suggestions on artifact destruction I don’t recall ever seeing an adventure that focused on that aspect. But, Old Dude is old, so maybe I just can’t recall any.

Ages ago the Mind Flayers created a little set of paired daggers called The Kingslayers. The daggers were forged to sow destruction in the above-ground lands by enabling/compelling the death of kings & rulers. In the ensuing chaos the Mind Flayers would keep the upper lands off balance until they could see their conquest plans to fruition. The daggers were successful in what they did, and many a ruler fell to them. Finally, hey were captured and placed in a valley, guarded by a group of elves. And thus the danger passed. Until, of course, the contact was lost with the elves. The Mind Flayers have regained the daggers and are preparing to set about their dastardly deeds again. In the first part of the adventure the party is sent through the underdark to retrieve the daggers, while in the second part they are sent to the plane of Limbo to destroy the daggers.

The first part of the adventure is relatively straight forwards. After surviving an ambush by an NPC party at an inn, the group will head through the Great Marsh, which is really just a set of wandering monster checks, 24 in all, in order to encounter the six groups on the wandering table. The most interesting are a Faerie Dragon and a pack of Vargouille. After trekking through the swap the party gets to an entrance to the underdark and sets off via boat. There’s a drow checkpoint which is an excellent opportunity for roleplaying, as well as a waterborne encounter with some cave fishers. Finally reaching dry land, the party navigates around a purple worm and in to an old dwarves outpost/dungeon now inhabited by Derro and their two Mind Flayer masters. It’s a pretty short affair, with only about 15 rooms. The Mind Flayers will be launching hit & run raids on the party with their psionic abilites, but eventually the party should kill them off and recover the daggers. The ambush at the inn is interesting because it’s with another NPC party; I’ve always been intrigued by those charts in the 1E DMG on NPC party creation. The cave fisher encounter is another nice one, and should prevent some interesting challenges to the PC as they party members are reeled up towards the ceiling. Finally, full 1E psionic Mind Flayers, with their servants, should prove a new & interesting foe for PC’s which haven’t encountered that type of thing before.

The second part of the adventure involves a trip through the astral plane to Limbo in order to unmake the daggers. As such you’ll need the Manual of Planes in order to get the full use out of this section of the adventure. You could wing it without it, however the spell changes and other different effects are part of the fun of an adventure on the planes, so I’d recommend using it. The party and their Githzerai guides are ambushed in the astral plane by a group of Githyanki right before traveling to Limbo. Once in Limbo they should be at the fortress which they need to explore to destroy the daggers. The keep has three levels, but, being on Limbo, it’s entirely random. We get a set of tables describing corridors and rooms, and what shows up on the other side when a door is opened. It’s entirely random, except for one encounter set encounter on each level, which is placed on the random table (a 12 on 2d6.) Otherwise it’s random rooms & corridors. On level1 all of the inhabited rooms are full of dark creepers. On Level 2 it’s Gambados, Gorbels, and Gibbering Mouthers. Level 3 has Gibberlings. On each level the party will wander about, encountering creatures, until they find a stir to the next level or the Special Encounter for that level. The special encounter will have an item that the party needs to unmake the daggers. Once all three are collected then the party can use the forge, in the third levels special encounter, to unmake the daggers. There are a couple of Slaad involved, as well as a couple of new monsters and new magical items.

I mentioned above that the daggers are intelligent and don’t want to be unmade. There are a couple of sections in the module where advice is given to the referee on how to play the daggers. They are probably powerful enough to dominate anyone who picks them up/uses them, and while being unmade they are powerful enough to influence chaotic characters in the same room. I enjoyed this aspect of the adventure. I suspect that not enough attention is really payed to our intelligent/ego friends. It certainly adds a unique aspect to the objects which goes a long way towards making each magic item unique & wonderful in it’s own way. Otherwise this is a really a two-part adventure. The first is a straight forward little adventure with a a couple of tough psionic Mind Flayers at the end. The second is a slog through a random keep on another plane, with all that both of those imply.

This is a tournament module. According to the introduction it was originally written for GenCon 22, in 1989, and then updated and released for the 3rd North Texas RPG con in 2011. The module is divided in to two parts in order to accommodate two rounds of play. My only other experiences with tourney modules are the C1/C2 series, as well as the expanded ‘conversion’ modules, such as the S series. The difference between the two is one of linearity. Tournament modules, must, by their nature, be rather linear and constrained. The expanded S series took the their convention roots and expanded in to something more exploratory and less linear. Storm over Skyreach is certainly a real tournament module, complete with pregens and scoring. It can easily be used as a linear dungeon for a group over a couple of sessions. In fact, it may be LESS linear and more interesting than many 4E and 3E modules.

The backstory revolves around an evil wizard. A few years back he raised a couple of armies, which contained some dragons not seen before, and set about  subjugating the surrounding area. His dragons abandoned him and he lost the war he started and disappeared. It was rumored he had a hide-out high up on Skyreach mountain, however the existence of a barbarian tribe, and war-weariness, made following-up difficult. Now, 50 years later, one of the wizards Storm dragons has been sighted in the area which is renewing fears that he wizard is once again gearing up to cause trouble. The party is sent to find and investigate the Skyreach lair.

After a brief roleplaying encounter with the king the party journeys to a village to rest overnight on their way to the mountain. A ruckus starts outside when a skeletal figure on a winged black horse shows up [I think I had that micronaut when I was a child!], complete with skull in hand, and shouts threats and starts a building on fire. A building with a child in it. Oh, and he turns a stone giant statue to life in the courtyard. Did I mention he also shoots some Shadows out of his skull? That’s a nice warm-up situation for the party!

More role-playing encounters happen with the barbarians tribe, and some wilderness encounters getting to and up to the mountain lair. There’s a great moment with a ring of delusion which is found at he top of a cliff. Nice! Here’s a helpful adventuring tip: don’t experiment with newly found items when you are in potentially perilous situations, like on top of cliffs or in the middle of lava fields. There are a couple of cave encounters prior to reaching the mountaintop lair. The first portion of the module ends with an encounter at the top of the mountain with a Storm dragon. The first half of the module has a few role-playing encounters, a few puzzle encounters, and a few combat encounters. I found it interesting and not at all boring. It should be a nice 3 hour challenge of a group. This first half does have a couple of issues. First, the skeletal figure on the horse flies off before the party can react. This is good from a ‘previewing the villain’, after all, we don’t want another Lareth situation do we? Better to get the party worked up over the Big Bad. I can’t help shaking the feeling though that it’s a bit of a cheap shot. Secondly, there’s a section where the party is knocked out and captured. This is less of an issue in a tournament module, since it’s most;y a series of set pieces anyway, however it still leaves me a bit anxious.

The second half of the module is meant to be round two and has the party exploring the wizards lair. It feels smaller and shorter and much more straight-forward in a ‘dungeoncrawl’ kind of way, even if it is a simple one. There are fewer puzzles, fewer interesting situations, and, IMHO, less fun. It feels like a tack-on rather than the focus of the adventure, which is what the backstory sets it up to be.

Yes, it’s linear, but it IS a well-written tournament module. Meaning that it has plenty of role-playing encounters, tricks, traps, and interesting situations for the party to navigate. It also, necessarily, has a ‘correct’ way to play, since the parties actions have to be scored. It does give some good advice to the tournament GM in running the party, managing their creativity, and limiting the amount of frustration the party may feel.

If this were a 4E module then it would probably be the greatest module ever published, given the non-combat encounters and exploration options. As it is, it’s an above-average OSR module and an excellent tournament module.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/263917/TM2-Storm-Over-Skyreach?affiliate_id=1892600