{"id":6646,"date":"2020-05-02T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-02T11:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=6646"},"modified":"2020-04-20T09:40:53","modified_gmt":"2020-04-20T13:40:53","slug":"all-through-the-long-dark-night-5e","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=6646","title":{"rendered":"All Through the Long, Dark Night (5e)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By William Fischer\nSneak Attack press\n5e\nlevel 1<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
In generations past, the villagers of Widderspire marked the eve of the winter solstice by leaving out gifts for a fey creature named Ember John. After the Aruandans conquered the Runewild, Aldric Widderspire, the village\u2019s new lord, became determined to end this practice. He trapped Ember John in an iron cage and sunk the fey to the bottom of Widderspire Pond. Today, the inhabitants of Widderspire commemorate Ember John\u2019s defeat by gathering around Widderspire Pond each winter solstice to exchange gifts, drink warm cider, and skate on the pond\u2019s frozen surface. Though banished from the mortal realm, Ember John is still alive. Recently, one of John\u2019s sprites, the icy-hearted Jack-o\u2019-Frost, located John in a frozen corner of the Fey Realm. Instead of setting free his master, Jack stole John\u2019s magical staff and proclaimed himself the \u201cLord of the Long, Dark Night.\u201d Jack and the other sprites now head to Widderspire to seek vengeance against the mortals who defeated them nearly a century ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This thirteen page adventure presents a winter-festival gone wrong and a journey in to the fey realm with a couple of combats and a decent number of skill checks. It\u2019s got a coherent plot that is fresher than most, without pandering to the \u201cgimmicky christmas special\u201d components that ruin so many seasonal adventures. I can take exception with the skill check mechanism and the DM text length, but overall it\u2019s not a disaster and provides a compelling vision of a fey centered campaign world without going over the edge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yeah! Solstice Winterfest! Cider, ice skating, roasted acorns, gifts, maybe a mistletoes kiss! And then the frozen pond cracks and some icy fey come out, killing some villagers and freezing others in a block of ice. Rumor has it that Ember John the fey is imprisoned under the ice, and his bag of embers can warm anything up! Down in to the pond you go to find Ember Johns Prison and get the bag of embers. All of which means fighting three ice mephits and a giant toad, as well as a bunch of skill checks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The theming here is very good. I am quite fond of a fey adventure, or, more specifically, a folklore-like adventure. Done well they summon up those half remembered tales from childhood and books and become more than the sum of their parts. The winter fest in this, with its ice skating, mistletoe, roasted acorns, and the like, helps sets the idyllic mood. It\u2019s seasonal without pandering to a certain holiday, being more solstice party and without any overtones that would lead the party to believe that something evil is going on. Its well done. And, then, the journey in to the icy pond through the crack, the ice toads cave under the pond, with great icicles hanging from the ceiling and swirling vortex of snow that\u2019s a gate to the fey realm. A powerful blizzard to fight through to reach a peaceful winter glade, and Ember John in a cage made of iron to keep him contained \u2026 his only responses being grins and smiles. And, of course, a bag of embers. This all feels wintery and folklorish without it going overboard. I like the elements and I like how they fit together, which is something I seldom say. I take it this is a part of a series of adventures and an campaign setting, and it\u2019s something I want to know more about based on just this adventure.  Quite the compliment indeed!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m not a big fan of the skill checks in this adventure. Some of it is preference, some of it is tuning, and some of it it just badly done. DC 8 to ice skate or fall. DC 8 to puck an acorn out of the fire without taking 1 HP of fire damage. DC8 to blah blahblah. DC 8, 10, 12, 15 to remember something about the legend of Ember John. This feels either like rolling for the sake of rolling dice or guarding certain information behind dice rolls. Just tell the players what they need to know about Ember John or make them talk to the villagers, without a skill check, to get the information. This is really, I guess, a personal preference. I don\u2019t do skill checks for mundane things in my games and I don\u2019t like hiding information behind a skill check. If it\u2019s going to enrich the game and\/or experience I like it to just be out there, or behind talking to an NPC or something.  Rolling the dice is to gain and advantage or not die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking of not dying. Make those skill checks! Roll 3 times to dive down in the icy pond to the cave underneath. (Frozen over pond on the coldest day of the year \u2026 I would have made the pond unnaturally warm also so as to hint the party could dive in it.) Anyway, fail your roll and take damage. There\u2019s a lot of that. Endure X by making a skill check or take damage. When you\u2019re lost in the blizzard after entering the fey realm you need to roll a 15 multiple times, each failure meaning 3 damage. There\u2019s some real death possibilities there, from just BS skill checks that the designer has forced on you to complete the adventure. If the skill check is a blocker in the adventure, its a gate that must be passed through, then the skill check shouldn\u2019t be open ended. Don\u2019t roll until you succeed. Instead apply some sort of penalty to failure, if you must include the mechanism<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DM text doesn\u2019t get to the point, instead it is the usual long and drawn out affair full of random trivia and unfocused sentences that make it hard to pull of the information you need. There\u2019s a knack to writing good DM text, text that is terse, clear, easy to scan and find information \u2026 and there\u2019s some mental block in most adventures, especially 5e\/Pathfinder, that seems to be endemic to the writing. Emulation of what others are writing? I don\u2019t know. But it\u2019s a pain to work with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s also a certain sort of aggressive genericism present, especially in the winter solstice festival part. The villagers can relate details to the party about folklore, but it\u2019s not really spelled out, or good examples given. Villagers proper don\u2019t get a decent summary, instead the adventure pointing to a campaign supplement. What NPC summary there is is more like an \u2026 index? The details are not really adventure focused. It seems afraid to get specific. A snowball fight instead of the specifics of a snowball fight. This is the time to build specificity in; bully John, or sweet girl Clara. And yet, it\u2019s just not there and is a poorer adventure for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, not bad. I do like folklore adventures and this is one of them. It tries, as best it can, to offer multiple solutions to some problems and decent dynamic combat situations with elements for the party to take adventure of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $3 at DriveThru. There is no real preview, just one of those flip-book ones. Bad designer! Put in a real preview that shows some examples of the actual encounters!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/261993\/Seasons-of-the-Runewild-All-Through-the-Long-Dark-Night?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By William Fischer Sneak Attack press 5e level 1 In generations past, the villagers of Widderspire marked the eve of the winter solstice by leaving out gifts for a fey creature named Ember John. After the Aruandans conquered the Runewild, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6645,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,29,15,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-5e","category-dungeons-dragons-adventure-review","category-no-regerts","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/darknight.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6646","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=6646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6647,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6646\/revisions\/6647"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}