{"id":8479,"date":"2023-03-15T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-15T11:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=8479"},"modified":"2023-03-01T07:23:16","modified_gmt":"2023-03-01T12:23:16","slug":"winters-feast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=8479","title":{"rendered":"Winter’s Feast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Melrex\nThe Merciless Merchants\nGold & Glory\nLevels 5-9<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Starvation is upon two barbarian clans. Hope for survival rides on a scout\u2019s report of sighting a dead Solifugas, a colossal ice worm. Hunting bands are set out to collect meat for survival but none have returned. You have been tasked to find them and bring back meat for the clan to survive the winter. But winter has been harsh and merciless this year, and other humanoids are rushing for the food source. And how did this giant worm die? What lays below the Glacier of the Mammoth?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 41 page adventure features a multi-level tomb and glacier with around eighty rooms. And multiple factions. A little light on the non-puzzle non-npc interactivity for my tastes, but, if you\u2019re in to old D&D adventures, like G2 or such, then this is your happy place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yeah, ok, so, GIANT worm dies running IN to cliffside. Inside is an old tomb. Humanoid bands show up to \u201cmine\u201d the meat. Other things show up to eat the humanoids. Human clan members, refugees from a failed meat gathering expedition, are trapped inside. So, if you don\u2019t do the initial \u201cgo find the missing clan members\u201d hook then, as just your average hobos, you can find the trapped clan members inside the worm\/cliff and gather meat, etc, to the great delight of the nomads back home. Interesting way to handle a variety of hook conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I seem all over the place with this review. Let me back up. A cliff side has a tomb in it. It\u2019s full of undead with a couple of main warring factions, feuding brothers. And, then, a few NPCish undead hanging around with goals related to the main undead factions. Notably mom and also dad. And then some more undead just going about their business doing their own undead things. And, then, out of the blue, a GIANT worm runs in to the cliffside. Like, IN to the cliffside, penetrating it, before dying. It\u2019s the middle of winter and everyone wants fresh meat, right? So humanoids start to show up. Bugbears and goblins. And, then also, ice trolls and insect creatures. And, then, some shit shows up to eat all of the humanoids, like yetis. And, then, humans tribesmen show up to gather meat, and get slaughtered with a few trapped inside. Yeah! Insert party here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I must say, when looking at the map I literally exclaimed \u201cHoly Fuck!\u201d It seems the designer has stepped up their mapping game, between this and Dragons Gullet. Nice map, with a central \u201cworm\u2019 corridor down the middle and caves and tomb room mini-complexs\/zones hanging off of it. I\u2019d light to see some monsters noted on the map, as well as noise, for DM ease, but otherwise a pretty decent and interesting map. There are a few rooms with reacting monsters and\/or major\/loud noises though and its a shame that\u2019s not shown on the map or noted better in the text \u2026 in the adjoining rooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Interactivity is \u2026 interesting. It\u2019s mostly combat. By far. With a heavy dose of talking to folks, potentially. I think just about everyone CAN be talked to. There\u2019s a decent number of people asking you to surrender (only to eat you later) and at least SOME more interesting things \u2026 generally of the Please Go Kill Them For Us variety. But, still, it\u2019s in there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The writing here is journeyman. \u201cThe walls, floor, and even ceiling glow an eerie blue from the cold ice that forms the cavern. The upper half of an orc corpse is encased in a block of ice and lays in the center of the cavern, only traces of blood staining the floor. The bottom half is nowhere to be found. Several other figures are scattered about, in various positions and are encased in blocks of ice, with a few fallen over\u201d I can quibble a lot with that. Yeah, it\u2019s decent enough, for the DM. It\u2019s also padded out in a weird way and lacks a certain joie d\u2019vivre. It\u2019ll do \u2026 it\u2019s just not doing a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
WHat we have here is a bit of a poser. This thing is not my style. But, as in G2, it is well done. Perhaps more so than G2. The dungeon concept, that of a giant worm penetrating a dungeon, has been done a couple of times before and is done here well with an interesting map. The supporting humanoid factions\/zone is interesting, as it the undead faction play and their \u201cnormal life\u201d shit. Creature encounters have a little bit to them, like the ice trolls playing the \u201cthrown the goblin off the cliff\u201d game. Yet, this feels a little too much of a hack for my tastes in dungeons. It\u2019s a pretty decent hack, with descriptions that wont win an award but do not offend too much. The mix, though, feels off to me, for my own tastes in D&D. Malrex is a solid producer of dungeons, though. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $6 at DriveThru. The preview is the entire thing, because Malrex is a stand up dude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/422997\/Winters-Feast?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Melrex The Merciless Merchants Gold & Glory Levels 5-9 Starvation is upon two barbarian clans. Hope for survival rides on a scout\u2019s report of sighting a dead Solifugas, a colossal ice worm. Hunting bands are set out to collect … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8478,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,22,15,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dungeons-dragons-adventure-review","category-level-6","category-no-regerts","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/winter.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8479","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=8479"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8480,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8479\/revisions\/8480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}