{"id":7610,"date":"2021-10-21T08:52:55","date_gmt":"2021-10-21T12:52:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=7610"},"modified":"2021-10-21T08:54:29","modified_gmt":"2021-10-21T12:54:29","slug":"demon-driven-to-the-maw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=7610","title":{"rendered":"Demon Driven to the Maw"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Emergency Thursday Post! <\/strong>
Emergency Thursday Post! <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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By Brad Kerr \nSwordlords Publishing\nCairn<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
SOMETHING IS WEIRD ABOUT THIS PARTY IN 16TH CENTURY SCOTLAND. A famous thief stole a magical jewel and hid inside a castle where a party is taking place. Enter the party, find the jewel, escape with your life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
FUCK! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
YES!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This sixteen page adventure details a nice party in a manor with about seventeen rooms \u2026 before things go to hell. It is everything an adventure like this (social\/investigation) should be. Brad Kerr knows how to add flavour to a bit of scenery without bogging you down in useless crap. I want to have millions and millions of this adventures babies. I repeat \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
FUCK!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
YES!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our pretext for this evenings adventure is \u201cThe thief Jougal stole the famed Sky Marble from the king\u2019s bedside. It\u2019s the talk of the town. A drunkard at the tavern swears he saw Jougal headed towards Firnhirst castle in Edburg, a forlorn neighboring hamlet. Following the drunkard\u2019s tip, you find a full blown party at Firnhirst Castle. Two smiling servants hold the door and beckon you to enter\u2026\u201d Not bad, eh? Short. Its the talk of the town. A drunkard tells you. A full blown party. You could either use that text as read-aloud or roleplay it out; there\u2019s enough there to get the gist of what\u2019s going and add enough, as a DM, to fit it in to the game smoothly. My only complaint is the last line. Yes, that\u2019s my only complaint IN THE ENTIRE ADVENTURE. As read-aloud that telegraphs to me, the player, to be on guard for More Than Meets The Eye. As the DM, it very successfully communicates the vibe of the adventure, but, perhaps, could inspire a bit more subtly. It\u2019s almost a perfect set up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, fellow asshats on this journey we call life, SPOILERS. Yes, that\u2019s right, I\u2019m announcing spoilers. Don\u2019t read further. I mean go right ahead and buy the thing so you can run it. You bought it? Ok, let\u2019s talk \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG! Cool, right? Ok, so, the local Baobhan Sith (deer-hooved vampires, with a delightful little art piece successfully conveying their nature. FUCK! Where’s my GURPS Vampires book when I need it?!) have come up from hell to throw a party for the Devil. And he\u2019s shown up! Let\u2019s see, they mostly look female, their skin is removable, sometimes swap identities for their own fun, and like to seduce weak-willed mortals and then slice their chests open to feed on their blood! (So, an older folklore vampire, not a D&D vampire.) And that\u2019s what\u2019s going on tonight. They\u2019ve taken over the manor and are throwing a party for the local villagers. Shortly after the party arrive the doors get chained shut (windows are arrow slit windows, this being a former \u2018working\u2019 manor) At some point (in 4d4+1 turns) they are going to set the place on fire to burn it down and start their black mass feast. Inside is the thief, along with a host of locals and mostly disguised hell folks. Search around for the thief, talk to some folks, get creeped out by things, and then ABSOLUTE CHAOS starts. This is what SHOULD happen in an adventure like this. Oh, and as the vampire\/sith are running around, after the fires have started, they are killing people, etc \u2026 they are yelling \u201cHail Satan!\u201d Because everyone reading this INSTANTLY recognizes that is EXACTLY what SHOULD happen in this situation. I can\u2019t think of anything else in life, ever, feeling more right than that.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Excellent use of bullets points to highlight important information, but not an overuse of them. SOmethinglike \u201cDuring the fire phase these things will happen\u201d or some such. Offset boxes are used, along with selective building, to highlight important bits of reference data. NPC\u2019s are generally found on one page. Maybe two sentences each, a general one and a \u201cWants.\u201d Lum, a giant from the underworld, sad that her date ditched her. Wants a good time, a hot meal, and basic human kindness. Noice! I can run Lum. It\u2019s quick, terse, and choked FULL of relatable human behaviour that I know how to run and is ACTIONABLE during the game. Hele, the Morning Star. Literally Satan. Doesn\u2019t care about all this blood and sacrifice stuff as much as everything thinks he does, bu, a party\u2019s a party. Fuck Yes! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Supplementing this are a table full of random villagers at the party, along with another with some of their small talk, as well as a small table for the vampire sith. Both of these are ACTIONABLE. Their tables are focused on their interactions. It is GAMEABLE DATA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Likewise the locations in the manor. They are all handled on, like three pages. Because the designer recognizes that this is NOT an exploratory adventure. What happens in THIS adventure is the party wanders around from room to room interacting with people, mostly.  The descriptions are generally focused on that. Again, generally interactive, with an NPC or something interesting, like a locked door (which no doubt the party will fixate on) or some such. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are little mechanics for redcaps, an increasing number over time, following you \u2026 waiting until their are enough of them to overpower you. Sweet! And a great table on \u201cWhat atrocity is happening in this room?\u201d after the fire\/black mass\/slaughter begins.  What happens when you go to hell? The adventure gives you advice! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
EVERYTHING here is SPOT on. It is exactly the correct amount of information. It is EXACTLY flavourful enough. It is formatted perfectly to do what it needs to do. It\u2019s not following rules, for formatting, but flowing naturally, relying on evocative tersity to convey what it needs to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can run this. You instinctively know HOW to run this. The adventure supports you in running it. It is full of GLEE, or, perhaps, POTENTIAL glee. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is all I have ever wanted in a D&D game. WHich means it is all I have ever wanted in life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $4 at DriveThru. The preview shows the entire thing. Because Brad is a classy guy. Try page 6, the NPC\u2019s for a great example of flavour, tersity, and gameability. Absolute wonder in sixteen digest pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/372360\/Demon-Driven-to-the-Maw?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Emergency Thursday Post! Emergency Thursday Post! By Brad Kerr Swordlords Publishing Cairn SOMETHING IS WEIRD ABOUT THIS PARTY IN 16TH CENTURY SCOTLAND. A famous thief stole a magical jewel and hid inside a castle where a party is taking place. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,30,31,3,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dungeons-dragons-adventure-review","category-god-effort","category-millions-and-millions-of-its-babies","category-reviews","category-the-best"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/demoin.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7610","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=7610"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7612,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7610\/revisions\/7612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}