{"id":2801,"date":"2015-10-14T07:05:06","date_gmt":"2015-10-14T11:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=2801"},"modified":"2019-02-21T10:10:57","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T15:10:57","slug":"the-ogress-of-anubis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=2801","title":{"rendered":"The Ogress of Anubis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"oa\"<\/a>
\nby Richard LeBlanc jr
\nNew Big Dragon Games Unlimited
\nD&D
\nLevels 4-6<\/p>\n

Azeneth believed the life of the high priest (or priestess) should be as comfortable as that of the kings and the gods. She spoke her contempt for her father\u2019s \u201cweakness\u201d loudly and publicly, almost from the time she learned to talk. As she neared her teens, she made it known her plan was to supplant her father and become high priestess of the temple, sometimes claiming it was her place as the incarnation of the goddess Nekhbet. Many say Azeneth has the power to command serpents, and it was she who sent the asp that killed her father Kemosiri. Regardless, she seized her position as high priestess of the temple and set about her accumulation of power and wealth. Recently, children from the villages around the temple have begun to disappear. Rumors abound that Azeneth is sacrificing them and cannibalizing them because she believes this will make her wealthier, more powerful, and more divine. The people of the villages have begun to refer to Azeneth as the \u201cogress of Anubis\u201d\u2014believing it was Anubis himself that made this woman mad, and commanded her to consume the children she sacrifices. Someone must end this reign of fear and terror, and try to return the children alive\u2014if it is in the will of the gods.<\/p>\n

This is an egyptian themed adventure. It\u2019s a raid on a temple compound to find some missing children. It\u2019s more historically accurate than it is interesting. Or at least it looks historically accurate \u2026 since I don\u2019t know nothing about Egypt. It\u2019s interesting to review this so close to Valley of the Five Fires. The differences (dare I say improvement?) are quite interesting. It hits some of my pet peeves, and ultimately the goodies are few enough to make it uninteresting to me. Never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn \u2026<\/p>\n

The adventure does a few things very right. It presents the area around the temple, including the villages. Each village gets a sentence or two to let the DM build on. Pretty good. Better would be that there was also something interesting in each village. Maybe you can fix this by taking some of the \u201ccontinue the adventure\u201d hooks at the end of the adventure and working them in. The temple compound area is pretty nice also. Priests, guards, support staff and pilgrims will around. It\u2019s very much presented as a locale that exists outside of the party \u2026 and then the party gets to dream up how they will get in. That\u2019s very nice. It harkens back to the scene in 13th Warrior where they see the camp outside of the cave lair and talk about getting in. I wish more adventures would do this sort of thing. It\u2019s always memorable when the designer doesn\u2019t railroad you into something. There\u2019s other little bits and pieces that also make this nice, like the parents of the missing children insisting on going with you (Fucking finally! You\u2019d think no one in D&D-landia loved their children they way all =seem to usually avoid trying to help you rescue their kin.)<\/p>\n

There\u2019s A LOT of mundane magic items in this adventure. It seems like every guard has a +1 sword, a +1 bow and a +1 dagger. And it\u2019s all boring. \u201cthey each have a +1 dagger.\u201d Oh, my, that\u2019s exciting. If the need is to give them a +1 to hit then just give them a +1 to hit. \u201cThey all pump iron, bro-style, every day. +1 hit & damage.\u201d Don\u2019t kill the mystery and wonder of the magical by making it mundane. In fact, the mundane treasures are are a lot better. Alabaster objects, gold blood bowls, and so on. Very nicely described.<\/p>\n

The temple proper is pretty linear and, I suspect, very historically accurate. Historically Accurate does not mean fun. Some of the setups in it are nice, like cages full of screaming children, a sacrifice in progress, and reed baskets with skeleton children in them. The adventure needs more of that \u2026 although \u2026 even that seems to be missing some \u2026 joy? It\u2019s all presented VERY fact based. I like things organized but the text must also inspire the DM and mundane facts are generally not the way to do it. I\u2019m not talking gonzo, or explosion-sounds, but rather a dynamic writing style to bring the descriptions to life.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t a bad adventure so much as it\u2019s not really a good one. I guess it\u2019s serviceable, but mostly uninspiring.<\/p>\n

This is available on DriveThru.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/116272\/TM1-The-Ogress-of-Anubis?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Richard LeBlanc jr New Big Dragon Games Unlimited D&D Levels 4-6 Azeneth believed the life of the high priest (or priestess) should be as comfortable as that of the kings and the gods. She spoke her contempt for her … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/oa.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2801"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5661,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2801\/revisions\/5661"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}