{"id":9392,"date":"2024-09-30T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-30T11:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=9392"},"modified":"2024-09-16T09:20:35","modified_gmt":"2024-09-16T13:20:35","slug":"raiders-of-the-forlorn-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=9392","title":{"rendered":"Raiders of the Forlorn God"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Andrea Tupac Mollica
Hellwinter Forge of Wonders
OSE
Levels 4-6<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
The wizard Azarhorn has hired you to escort him to the Cenotaph of the Forlorn God, where a fabulous treasure awaits you. You heard something about the sinister fame surrounding the place, but the wizard promised you a good reward and all the riches you can plunder: enough to dismiss all doubts and fears. You just arrived at the village of Greyven, nothing more than a bunch of stone houses a few miles away from your final destination. You have the time to supply; then you\u2019ll have to leave for the Cenotaph and the perils awaiting you inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This forty page adventure uses about sixteen pages to describe about seventeen rooms in a dungeon\/prison. Rooms are one trick challenge rooms, with generic tropes done generically and an uninspiring, but short, writing style. At least there\u2019s that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, the good. The rooms descriptions are relatively terse. There is a decent amount of DM text for each room, but, also, for something like this I think it could be considered terse. We\u2019re no longer in the days of just noting pit traps on the map, so a short paragraph about one seems to be the standard.  And, the paragraphs are focused on the effects of the rooms in a kind of bullet point style, once major thing per point, so, it doesn\u2019t seem like the text, either DM text or room read aloud, is too burdensome. This, alone, means that I don\u2019t hate this adventure. Also, the adventure starts with you passing through a little village and there\u2019s a body hanging from a gallows in the middle of the village square. Groovy! That\u2019s a fun bit of description! It\u2019s got some game effect, cutting off it\u2019s pinkies to use to open doors per some folklore, bt, still, it\u2019s a nice touch anyway. That\u2019s exactly the kind of thing you might put in to set the mood for a disaster to follow or some such. There\u2019s one more nice little bit, and it\u2019s in the village also. The villagers have a rumor\/legend about The Hill Horror that wander the hills. That\u2019s what they call it, The Hill Horror. That\u2019s the way legends and rumors work! Name the thing. The troll under the bridge should be Ol Man Hickory. The bandits should be Fat Mamma Cass\u2019 Boys. I love it! Oh, one more bit of finery in this adventure: at one point in the wilderness the party gets a better die roll if they have a ranger \u201cor a stray dog is with them.\u201d That\u2019s some OSR D&D playing right there! Got a dog? It\u2019s gonna help you out. A free-wheeling kind of play, in which mechanics are not tied, via the books, to every little thing but circumstances make a difference. Make the case why you don\u2019t need to roll the dice! Get a dog. Have a DM that thinks about what is going on rather than just looking up rules!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Which is not at all to say that I think this is a good adventure. It is, at most, an adventure that does not offend too much. I did find myself giving withering sigh after withering sigh, Sideshow Bob style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, we\u2019ve got an escort mission. You\u2019re escorting Mr Wizzo in to the dungeon. How fun. Then, of course, Mr Wizzo doesn\u2019t help you at all during the adventure. What fun. \u201cHe considers it a test to see if he chose the right people to escort him in to the dungeon.\u201d What fun. And then in the last room of the dungeon he turns on you to kill you. What fun. Never say that one coming. You know why adventurers don\u2019t have families and loved ones? Because the shitty DM trauma is real. Anyway, go ahead, take your time, explore the dungeon. But \u2026\u201dAfter one month, all the Forlorn God dungeon\u2019s perils reset, and all the creatures revive with full HP\u201d What fun. I just can\u2019t fucking stand of that shit. Why are we even playing D&D? It\u2019s all fucking bad. It takes the agency out of the players hands. Just watch a fucking movie or roll one die as a party and have the DM narrate what happens for the next four hours. loathe Loathe LOATHE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The map is an uninteresting affair, with no real thought behind it. The read-aloud can be column length in some places, and terse in others. But t also is in an annoying fucking font that is hard to read. It\u2019s beyond me why people still do this. DId no one tell you this? That, as the DM, it was hard to read the fucking font? No? Because you didn\u2019t give it to someone to run? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the room descriptions. Ug. Some of them are short and terse. \u201cNARROW AND UNEVEN STEPS DESCEND INTO THE DARK BELLY OF THE HILL, FROM WHICH A FETID AND STALE AIR EXUDES.\u201d I\u2019m down for some fetid and stale air exuding from the dungeon. But when we also get shit like \u201cTHIS COLD ROOM IS BARE EXCEPT FOR THE REALISTIC STATUES OF six war mastiffs. AN UNKNOWN HAND PORTRAYED THE BEASTS IN VARIOUS POSITIONS.\u201d An unknown hand? Really? It\u2019s all in that weird narrator style, or stage direction style, maybe. \u201cA ghostly figure COVERED IN A RAGGED BLACK ROBE SITS IN FRONT OF A TABLE WITH eleven mouse skulls. WITH A BOOMING, EERIE VOICE, THE FIGURE INTRODUCES ITSELF  AS THE Skullmaster AND INVITES THE CHARACTERS TO CHALLENGE IT TO A GAME OF INTELLIGENCE AND STRATEGY\u201d What the fuck is that about? Abstracted? Generalized? I have no words to even describe that writing style and its blunder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Interactivity is simplistic. Basically, in each room you face a challenge. Maybe a pit trap or something. And you have to collect all of the keys and use them to open various doors, etc. In most rooms you have to be quiet or The Jailer shows up. It\u2019s not clear to me how he gets from level one of the dungeon to level two, since the entrance is under a lake you have to drain. But, anyway, he shows up if you\u2019re not quiet. We get \u201cchallenges\u201d like \u201c, the doors magically close, and all the lights, including the magical ones, snuff out\u201d and then the ink demon attacks. Of course. Fucking doors slamming and your lights going out. Lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame  lame lame lame  lame lame lame  lame lame lame  lame lame lame  lame lame lame  lame lame lame  lame lame lame  lame lame lame  lame lame lame  lame lame lame  lame lame lame  lame lame lame  lame lame lame  lame lame lame. Backstory that doesn\u2019t make a difference in the adventure. The Jailer was the former blah blah blah\u201d but, of course, doesn\u2019t mean anything since he can\u2019t remember anything and even if he did it wouldn\u2019t impact the adventure you\u2019re on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Uninteresting rooms. Generic tropes done generically. Plot points worthy of the worst 5e dreck. That all detracts from the better parts of the adventure, which are few and far between. And yet I don\u2019t hate this. At least the rooms are short. I\u2019d drink myself to oblivious if I had to run this, but I could run it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $3 at DriveThru. There\u2019s no real preview. There is a sample of one dungeon page but you can\u2019t really read it. Sadz \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/en\/product\/494628\/raiders-of-the-forlorn-god?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Andrea Tupac MollicaHellwinter Forge of WondersOSELevels 4-6 The wizard Azarhorn has hired you to escort him to the Cenotaph of the Forlorn God, where a fabulous treasure awaits you. You heard something about the sinister fame surrounding the place, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9391,"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-9392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/forlorn.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9392","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=9392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9393,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9392\/revisions\/9393"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}