{"id":9669,"date":"2025-03-17T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T11:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=9669"},"modified":"2025-03-03T09:00:07","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T14:00:07","slug":"the-order-of-the-new-dawn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=9669","title":{"rendered":"The Order of the New Dawn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
By Rustic Ink
Self Published
Shadowdark & \"OSR\"
Levels: 4<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
The Order of the New Dawn: Set in the heart of the Iron Duchy, where political tensions are tearing the city apart, a dark cult grows in the shadows, weaving intrigues and threatening to consume everything. The recent death of the ducal family has left the city in chaos, with no legitimate heir to restore order. Ambitious nobles, wealthy merchants, and unscrupulous military figures fight for control of the region. In this volatile climate, the Dragon Zoryak, lurking in the city’s sewers, leads a fanatical cult that seeks to seize power. While the cult’s leader knows that his magical powers are granted by the dragon himself, the followers believe they are serving a divine entity named Zoryak, who promises a “New Dawn” and a better future for them all. As the cult’s influence spreads, mysterious disappearances begin to plague the surface<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This eleven page page adventure presents fifteen rooms in a dragons lair. That is also a cult. That is also a sewer. That is also a mine. With a mad scientist. The read-aloud isn\u2019t terrible, but the encounters are essentially just stabbing this rooms monster and rolling a save for a random pretextual effect combined with some DM\/designer fiat. Not cool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The OSR category on DriveThru is littered with Mork Borg and Shadowdark adventures. And this, it turns out, is also a Shadowdark adventure. I probably would have skipped it if I had noticed that. Nothing against Shadowark, but I\u2019m not interested in it.  And why is that? Sewers. And Mines. And a dragon. And a cult. And a mad scientist. I guess when in doubt just chuck everything in there. And none of it really works. It\u2019s sewers. But also the sewers break in to mines! And there\u2019s a cult! But its controlled by a dragon! With a Mad Scientist lieutenant! Who creates mechanical monsters! Sure man, whatever. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There a turn of phrase here and there that is not terrible, usually in the read-aloud. \u201cAn old, rusted iron ladder descends from the market alley into a dark and foul-smelling sewer canal. The atmosphere is thick with humidity and the distant echoes of dripping water. A central channel divides the sewer into two narrow walkways through which sewage fluids slowly flow westward.\u201d Yeah, ok. I\u2019m not the happiest with \u201cold\u201d but we\u2019ve got some dripping water and thick humidity in there with some foul smelling water. Let\u2019s move on the negative, yeah?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wandering monster have a 50% chance EVERY TWO ROUNDS. That seems a tad rough. The rumor table is boring and abstracted. \u201cA mechanical monster was spotted dragging an unconscious woman through the alleyways of the market in the West Port District.\u201d Well color me thrilled I guess. This is the kind of useless and meaningless writing that just drags me down for the rest of the day. Give the fucking thing some life! Be specific! Not wordy, specific. Spotted by who? A mechanical monster? No. Describe it. That\u2019s the way fucking people work. \u201cPimp Ray swears he saw something with two heads, shadowy, drag that matchstick girl, no, the other one, down \u2026\u201d  How about a hoooky mchookerson? \u201cA humble woman, wife of a missing sailor, begs for help. Her only clue is that he was last seen in the market of the West Port District. Her faith in heroes drives her to offer everything she has, even if it\u2019s little, and her gratitude will be eternal.\u201d It\u2019s all just non-specific drivel. There\u2019s nothing here to riff on because there’s nothing here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The formatting here is weird. It\u2019s a smaller font, maybe four entries to a page. Each one boxed. Boxed text is shaded, bolding and bullets are used. And yet it looks like some wall of text. It\u2019s possible, I guess, to follow the individual rooms and the entries, but man. The boxes around each room do something to this to make me just tilt my head in angst. It\u2019s also fully committed to this, so, for example, the first room, the main sewer line, has this line in it \u201cIf the players follow the clues leading to the market, they will find an entrance to the sewer system in one of the market\u2019s alleys.\u201d Thus the transition from the hooks to the dungeon is handled in room one. Which is fine, I guess? It just somehow transgresses against conventional forms .. and for no good reason. And I have to be down for that, I don\u2019t believe in a set formula. But it\u2019s just jarring. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The interactivity here is low effort. You get in a fight. You trigger a trap. The traps are weird. It\u2019s just a Roll A Save trap, in ome cases, with little to no warning. There\u2019s this pretext sometimes \u201cits a magic trap that effects you if you try to leave the room\u201d but, its just a save and something happens because the pretexts are just \u201cmagical effect.\u201d But, then in another place, there\u2019s a trap that more of a special, r puzzle. There\u2019s a read-aloud that says \u201cHalfway through the passage, a thin beam of dim light crosses from one side to the other. The rocks on the floor in this section appear unusually smooth and marked with scars from fire.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We get some descriptions that tell us, in boxed text \u201cThe air is heavy and warm [GREAT!] filled with a mineral scent [Great!] that irritates the throat.\u201d I\u2019m not sure I would have put that very last part, the throat, in the description. I\u2019d have left it out and roleplayed it, as a mystery that the party doesn\u2019t know about, letting them make the leap of logic from mineral scent to irritated throat.  In another place we get some abstracted descriptions \u201cThe images on the tapestries are very disturbing.\u201d And thats the FOLLOW UP description. The initial one says something like sacrifices or something. It\u2019s just explaining, again, WHY you have to make a save in the room. Because the tapestries are disturbing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cKarstov and his concubine (a Fanatic) are indulging their base instincts\u201d When you put sex in an adventure then you want to talk to the player about sex and you\u2019re horny. Unless its his mom hes fucking, and its integral to the adventure, I don\u2019t need to know. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dragon, the cultists, the mechanical monsters \u2026 no descriptions for them. Enjoy your abstracted adventure. The cultists are just dudes. Who wrote that great thig for the cult in the that WotC Tiamat adventure? THOSE were great cultists! Oh, the dragons treasure hoard does self destruct and melt in 1d4 turns. You think they mean forty minutes? I can snag a lot in ten minutes. Also, I don\u2019t really care if it slags; I\u2019ll haul it out and get it made into ingots.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $1. The preview is all eleven pages, so, nice preview. I approve!\u00a0Well, of the preview …<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/en\/product\/513164\/the-order-of-the-new-dawn?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Rustic InkSelf PublishedShadowdark & “OSR”Levels: 4 The Order of the New Dawn: Set in the heart of the Iron Duchy, where political tensions are tearing the city apart, a dark cult grows in the shadows, weaving intrigues and threatening … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9668,"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-9669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/newd.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9669","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=9669"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9670,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9669\/revisions\/9670"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}