{"id":9505,"date":"2024-12-18T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-18T12:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=9505"},"modified":"2024-12-03T12:54:00","modified_gmt":"2024-12-03T17:54:00","slug":"gods-of-the-forbidden-north-volume-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=9505","title":{"rendered":"Gods of the Forbidden North – Volume 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Robert Alderman
Pulp Hummock Press
OSE
Level 1<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
On the arctic frontier, at the border between the mountains and the wastes beyond, looms Castle Thar-Gannon. For centuries, the Skull God ruled his domain from his blackened throne. But 20 years have passed since the routing of his armies, and now the castle lies abandoned with riches unclaimed. Yet, death still lurks in the shadows of the ruins. An ancient doom arises from the depths of this place\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 482 work of hubris describes a city, wilderness hex crawl, and five dungeons in the frozen north, all working towards an end-of-the-world adventure path. Excellent worldbuilding, pretty decent hexes, and absolutely no understanding beyond a 3e level of what an adventure is, in design or formatting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve been reading this and ruminating on it for a week now [ed: a week and a half now.] I\u2019m not sure what to think. Well, no, I do know what to think: there\u2019s no way in fucking hell I\u2019d ever run this and only a masochist would read this for fun. But the worldbuilding is there and it\u2019s got some interesting parts to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019re gonna ignore the lengthy backstory for the most part. There\u2019s this void-worm thing devouring the world, evil sorcerer king who rules the land goes away, settlers move in. Ultimately this appears to be a kind of adventure path. The adventures all kind of lead to each other and its all leading to this sorcerer king reappearing and the void worm thingy in volume three, I suspect. To that end we\u2019ve got a city homebase described, a bunch of wilderness rules\/tables, a hex crawl, and about six interconnected dungeons that get to level four or five by the end. And that\u2019s all gonna take FIVE. HUNDRED. PAGES.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t know these people. But they put out FIVE HUNDRED PAGES. I could never do that. They put it out in a way that looks like an adventure. For some definition of \u201clayout\u201d and \u201cediting\u201d. Those things were done to a level that, at first glance, seems chill. I\u2019m going to be very critical of this thing. But, the folks involved did a professional job on it, for some definition of that word. Just not the \u201cAdventure\u201d definition of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The worldbuilding here is great. I mostly ignored the lengthy backstory, so I didn\u2019t pick it up from there. But the individual locations and encounters, those do have a way of building on each other. There are elements of mystery and hinting at things in them that is excellent. It leads to wonder and be excited. (This is complimented, in places, by the art. There are some pieces, at times, that do a great job at giving a sense of scale. Cyclopean, the way you imagine Moria but few can capture. It\u2019s a small percentage of the art, but those pieces are GREAT.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This penchant for worldbuilding is interesting. I wondered frequently if this was an over-investment in, perhaps, a home campaign. Whatever the case, the worldbuilding and the hex crawl combine to produce some stellar outcomes. If you think about it a bit, the qualities overlap a lot. You\u2019re trying to build something interesting, a citation, in a hex crawl encounter. And yet you need to keep it somewhat short; you\u2019re doing scores of them in a typical hex crawl, at a minimum. And the hex crawl here is memorable because of that, the combination of worldbuilding, and its associated flavor for real and hinted at, and the quickness of the hit and ability of the DM to then riff off of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe domed Shrine of Taggarik looms over the desolate mountain wastes like a tomb. This structure of ice and stone is carved into the side of a windswept peak. Its entrance archway has been marked with two square pillars etched in swirling symbols.\u201d Inside is a giant ice throne with a cyclopean figure seated on it, surrounded by trophies. \u201cThey are both a source of incredible pride and agonizing shame.\u201d Saumen Kar. So, demon, pride and shame, goes on benders sometimes and terrorizes the countryside till he chills out. Talks to the party a bit probably.Some of the trophies are malnourished young children frozen in ice.It seems one of this favorite pasttmie is tormenting a nearby village full of orphans. He killed at their parents. They worship him for food and sacrifice of their number to him. It\u2019s all they know, there is no other worldview for them (I\u2019m describing two hexes here, the demon shrine dome and the orphan village.) Escape? The wilderness outside has the 12 Black Wolves of the Garngat. Do I know what that is? No, but it sounds fucking awesome, yeah?!  And I\u2019m leaving a decent amount of awesome shit out!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also, the demon is fifteen hit dice. Also, JUST the demon dome, and it\u2019s one room, go on for two pages. His stat block takes up a column. Did I mentioned the three eight HD golems? Levels 1-4! The demon, the nearby village, there are situation here. And that\u2019s what a hex crawl should be. And they are flavourful as all fuck. But the designer CANNOT shut his fucking mouth. This is one of the more critical flaws in the adventure. Dude will NOT shut up. I am not wading through three pages of text to run a fucking encounter. NO ONE is going to do that. This this five hundred page adventure is something that get read, and might get purchased, but will not get played. Is that what the designer really wanted? Adventure writing is technical writing. You need to communicate just enough. You need to inspire the DM to take what you\u2019ve written and run with it. But it needs to be terse, so they can scan it at the table and run it. You can\u2019t run a fucking encounter if you have to stop the game for ten minutes to read it first. The phone come out. The players lose interest. Write terse. Write evocatively. Leverage the fact you\u2019re got a DM to riff on what you\u2019ve them. Specificity, not detail. Hint at backstory. Leave room for wonder. That adds so much to mystery and the flavour of a game. But this ENDLESS droning on and on \u2026 Man, a quick hit on how to run an NPC that the party meets can last a column. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The books credits imply that a lengthy cutting of text was involved. It wasn\u2019t enough. And the layout and formatting were NOT up to the task of managing such a huge word count. Our starting city a fucking mess. It is close to being a generic-ville (and, in fact, I\u2019d say the theme of the Northlands is generally lost, in spite of lengthy sections on terrain, weather, and the natives. It just doesn\u2019t come through.) There are some brief moments in the town that are ok. The gate guards of the \u201cwealthy\u201d gate turning people away to other gates. A weird obsession with hookers appearing throughout. (I think maybe every word on that 1e DMG table was used here?) But there IS the kind of specificity, in places, that cement a locale and help bring it to life. It\u2019s just surrounded by a MASSIVE glut of words that obfuscates anything interesting. And forget about finding anything during play. Your ability to locate a specific tavern or, say, a tavern in general, is going to be close to nill. It\u2019s just a stream of text with very little overriding organization behind it and WAY too many words for each item. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As for the first adventure,  \u201cAn innovative feature of this mega-adventure is the step-by-step character creation process packed into the starter quest\u2019s beginning.\u201d *GROAN* Ok, sure, but I can live with that. WHat\u2019s harder to live with the generic \u201cthrow in every trope possible\u201d for this first adventure. A pickpocket chase?! A guard captain with a job?! A LONG ass tavern section? \u201cThe heroes awaken next morning, eat breakfast at the inn\u2014eggs, goat\u2019s milk, and a hot helping of caribou sausages\u2014and get ready to explore. It is an overcast day outside without rain\u201d *groan* \u201cWhen ready to continue, read or paraphrase the following text aloud to your players:\u201d The designer, editor, and layout never saw a word or turn of phrase they didn\u2019t think to include in the adventure. This first one is just tropes and has none of the characteristic flavour found in other sections. You do get to tell the guard captain to put a homeless kid to death though. Also, kid has 95gp and a full weeks worth of food costs 5gp, so \u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyway, in the middle fof this mess of a third adventure, here\u2019s some typical text \u201cSecond Wave. Zarcand expends his word of bones ability to summon 4 loam gauntsA. The gaunts burst out from under the muddy road pavers and rise from the earth. This creates muddy groundC hazards in their wake. The battlefield is getting treacherous! Zarcand directs the undead to attack the amulet wearer and his allies. The gaunts claw at heroes locked in melee and loam lob everyone else\u201d The battlefield is getting treacherous!  And you can see from this an emphasis on these battlefield tactics. Terrain restrictions. Long stat blocks. MOSTLY combat. This is 3e. More than a few of the rooms have \u201cIt attacks!\u201d, as the dungeon exists only for combat, it seems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first dungeon is this weird death trap puzzle. It\u2019s got a nigh unstoppable enemy and poison gas at the end, so you work your way through this tomb and then run for freedom.  Then there\u2019s this raid on a slavers stronghold, with two islands and \u201cThe Guzzler\u201d, a literally unkillable enemy on the second one. The monster as a muzzle, so to speak, or obstacle. There\u2019s a barrow that\u2019s pretty simple and then a lighthouse like thing, a tower. The first, in particular, is pretty overwrought with text with things settling down a bit in the others, but, still, I don\u2019t know how I would run slavers island assault as written. There\u2019s some REALLY good details in places, like grasping hands coming out of a door, but it ALL runs on for far too long. And, to no good end. It\u2019s not the worldbuilding, its the conversational tone. Almost every undead is a generic one with no soul to them. That\u2019s really too bad. It\u2019s just there to stab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is clearly a heartbreaker. I suspect volume two, already out, is more of the same. EXCELLENT worldbuilding. But a 3e style of dungeon and, more than that, the dungeon AS a puzzle, as a whole. That\u2019s a little too perfunctory for me. There\u2019s a slavish devotion to format\/layout even where it doesn\u2019t make sense. WAY too many words, three paragraphs are used when two sentences would be much better. This IS a real adventure, but I don\u2019t see how you can run it without a stupid amount of prep. And I can buy something else, far cheaper, that will be far easier to run and even more fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $35 at DriveThru. The preview is nineteen pages. It shows you nothing of the dungeons, or the town, so you\u2019ll have no way of figuring out if the content is for you. Just that someone paid for layout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/en\/product\/451792\/gods-of-the-forbidden-north-volume-1?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Robert AldermanPulp Hummock PressOSELevel 1 On the arctic frontier, at the border between the mountains and the wastes beyond, looms Castle Thar-Gannon. For centuries, the Skull God ruled his domain from his blackened throne. But 20 years have passed … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9506,"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-9505","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\/12\/111.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9505","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=9505"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9507,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9505\/revisions\/9507"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}