{"id":2911,"date":"2016-02-29T07:16:50","date_gmt":"2016-02-29T12:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=2911"},"modified":"2019-02-21T10:40:46","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T15:40:46","slug":"moans-of-the-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=2911","title":{"rendered":"Moans of the Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"mo\"<\/a>by Lotheras of Gaiden
\nSelf Published
\nSwords & Wizardry
\nLevel 1<\/p>\n

The Villagers of Iceshire are certain they are hearing the gurgling and moaning of the undead in the snow capped woodlands that surrounds their tiny civilization. Some of the citizens believe a Liche, spoken of in legends, is trying to acquire what he desperately seeks: the Gray Pearl. An amulet possessing the divine powers of creation.<\/p>\n

I know that \u201cWhat does OSR mean?\u201d is a hot button topic in some circles. In a related note, is an adventure a \u201cSwords & Wizardry Adventure\u201d if it contains S&W stats? Are there any other requirements? I don\u2019t know. It seems like there\u2019s a Spirit of the Law and Letter of the Law thing going on. This is a linear scene-based adventure that uses S&W stats but does not follow the S&W treasure guidelines. Also it\u2019s linear & scene based. It\u2019s got some decent imagery, especially with the monsters, but 8 linear scene encounters, half with large groups of ghouls, half with \u201cand then after you kill them 4 more come rushing in\u201d just doesn\u2019t seem like the spirit of S&W to me.<\/p>\n

Adventures like this are why I write reviews. I have certain expectations and when they are not met I tend to feel cheated. This thing is not what I expect when I buy a S&W adventure. It may be fine on its own (it’s not) but you should know what you are getting before you buy. Especially at the $4 or $5 price point on RPGNoW.<\/p>\n

A monastery\/religious village is having trouble meditating at night because of the increasing moans coming from the forest. The Moans of the Dead! (It sounded better in my head, in a cheesy 50\u2019s way.) There\u2019s about a page of background before it jumps into the encounters, which are one page per encounter. The introduction is ok. it\u2019s nicely terse and evocative, but is missing a few things. Like a map. (Remember, Scene based! in a village?) The name of the bad guy is buried further in the adventure, even though the priest briefs you at the start. A little more on the village would have been nice at the start, to get things oriented.<\/p>\n

The eight encounters all have the same qualities. Props for consistency, even if they are not great. At least the review will be shorter. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a section of read aloud. it\u2019s about four sentences each, but quite long sentences. There\u2019s usually one good descriptive line in it. \u201cPale white boney hands reach out from the earthy graves!\u201d or \u201cin the distance you hear the screams of the villagers and the moans of the dead.\u201d This will be followed by a description of the battle about to take place. There\u2019s ALWAYS a battle. \u201c3 tentacles attack\u201d or some such. Then there\u2019s the monster stat block and description (again, nice monster descriptions!) and a couple of sentences on tactics (which usually has a good evocative line: \u201cthey claw wildly with their bony fingers\u201d, or some such. I liked it.Then there\u2019s a section on treasure. \u201cA silver ring and 14 cp.\u201d or \u201c12gp and 22 sp.\u201d There tend to be large groups of monsters, especially ghoul-like things with paralyzation abilities, and after you kill the first batch another batch then shows up.<\/p>\n

You should be recognizing some issues about now. Not enough treasure. Forced combats supported by the scene-based and format and lack of a map. Lots of tough creatures. Lack of agency in the second group showing up in a programmed fashion. In addition there is another railroad with the priest showing up later dead. That\u2019s a typical plot-based problem that doesn\u2019t account for the party not following the plan the designer had.<\/p>\n

I REALLY like the creativity of the non-book monsters. (I didn\u2019t go into them, but they are really good, non-standard, creepy, and well described.) I like the sentence or two of evocative text in each encounter. But the rest of the text is just filler. Stylistically, this feels like a Pathfinder or 4e adventure than it does a S&W adventure.<\/p>\n

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

https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/264114\/White-Box-Quests–Moans-of-Dead?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Lotheras of Gaiden Self Published Swords & Wizardry Level 1 The Villagers of Iceshire are certain they are hearing the gurgling and moaning of the undead in the snow capped woodlands that surrounds their tiny civilization. Some of the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/mo.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2911","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=2911"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5682,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2911\/revisions\/5682"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}