{"id":9742,"date":"2025-05-03T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-03T11:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=9742"},"modified":"2025-04-18T18:26:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T22:26:39","slug":"the-herbomancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=9742","title":{"rendered":"The Herbomancer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
By Silvio Navaretti, Alberto Iamone, Julien Fenoglio
Forgia Storie
OSE
Levels 3-5<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
At the end of his long life, the wealthy herbalist Cavillo Spiga required his descendants to tend to the Botanical Cemetery\u2019s garden where he would be buried, under penalty of forfeiting the family’s immense wealth. For decades his heirs have sent a large number of gardeners every month to keep the Botanical Cemetery in perfect order.  But this month no gardeners have returned and the wealth of the Spiga family is in danger! Can you prevent it from falling into the hands of ruthless probate lawyers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 54 page adventure details a small cemetery and tomb, with about twenty locations overall. It is meant to be a light heater farce, I think. In the end though it is just wordy for what it is, as a walking tour of a cemetery with a What A Clever Designer Am I vibe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t like salmon. Or tuna, for that matter. Specifically, I don\u2019t like them in their \u201csteak\u201d forms. Cod or halibut? Sure. But generally I loathe steak fish cuts. The rest of you can enjoy them while I silently judge you. And the same goes for these farce adventures. It\u2019s some kind of tone thing or something. I can\u2019t stand it. It\u2019s not just farce though. I can get behind some farce, and absurdity. It has something to do with the comedic elements. I think they are supposed to be comedic? They aren\u2019t. They are lame. It\u2019s this pastiche. . You\u2019re supposed to think its farce, or supposed to think it\u2019s funny. But it\u2019s neither; it\u2019s just Try Harding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ok, so, cemetery with a dude buried in it. He\u2019s relatives got his money as long as they planted a specific garden in the cemetery and kept it well maintained over the years. He\u2019s back to unlife and, in the words of the adventure \u201cThe Herbomancer is working on the recipe for the perfect herbal tea\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
See! See! Ohhhh boy! Isn\u2019t that great! Guffaw guffaw guffaw. You\u2019re supposed to think it\u2019s funny. I don\u2019t know, maybe you think it is funny. I don\u2019t. I don\u2019t think comedy works well at all in D&D. Sure, you can stick elements, but the suspension of disbelief required means that, at best, I think you can push things to a magical realism type of thing, with brief steps over the line. You know what I have a problem with though? \u201cd. Bee-drawn: Tens of thousands of bees pull the wagon each with its own tiny harness tied to the front of the wagon. It moves 9′ per round.\u201d That\u2019s the werebee queens wagon. No? How about? \u201cAll goblins crossing The Botanical Cemetery tie a twig to their head. This silly accessory makes it so the zombie gardeners mistake them for plants, watering them, covering them in manure and shearing their hair. Cunning PCs might imitate the goblins to stay safe from gardeners.\u201d This is, perhaps, as close as I\u2019m willing to go. It is stepping on another trope, of the moronic humanoids, but, also, the party putting sticks on their heads is fun. This is my kind of farce, with a deadly edge to it. Alas, this is few and far between in this adventure, with most of it being the loathsome kind. But, then again, maybe you like that loathsome stuff? What I\u2019m looking for may not be what you\u2019re looking for, in tone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s more than enough for me to not like without droning on about the tone. In the first area of the cemetery you meet some zombie gardeners. If you question them then the DM is instructed to ignore the questions and have the zombies recommend that te party don\u2019t step on the flowerbeds. Again, not my kind of zombies, but, whatever. (In fact, I find the range of zombie vibes in published adventures wild. Mostly just generic undead, sometimes the hordes of flesh eaters, sometimes the horror of the living dead, and sometimes you can talk to them. I guess everyone has their own private Idaho?) <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh, also, that first room has the key you\u2019re looking for and you\u2019d have to be an idiot to not find it. You\u2019re told that you hear the zombies hoes striking something metallic. Whatever. This is what counts for the heights of interactivity here. Oh, there\u2019s shit to do. But, again, it\u2019s just a pastiche. There\u2019s no reason to really do anything. Stumble about, grab the key and the other part of it. Maybe talk to a couple of people. Turn some undead (zombies. At levels 3-5?!) Anyway, stumble about and interact with a bunch of ZannAAyYY creatures. Yeah you <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh, you get to travel through a body. FLATULENCES \u2022 Every 5 rounds: Muscular contractions in the walls create waves of explosive gas that are forcefully expelled toward the exit\u201d That\u2019s right man, never miss an opportunity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh, the format? Mostly facing pages. Which means two pages per room. Ug! And it\u2019s trying to to the necrotic gnome type formatting. But it doesn\u2019t understand what the purpose of that is or how to use it. Bolding leading to subject headings? Forget that shit, how about just bolding and subject headings not connected to it? The necrotic formatting works because it all works together. You have to understand the why of it to understand how to use it effectively. Otherwise it’s not bringing the clarity that the format is famous for, it’s just, again, putting on a pastiche. It looks like it should be chill but it’s actually worse than if it wasn\u2019t used at all. What if I made a dictionary, and it KIND of looked like it was alphabetical order, but, turns out, it wasn\u2019t? I mean, it DOES still have word definitions, right? It\u2019s just a major pain in the ass to use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh, one encounter has an amphitheater with a bunch of skulls in it, screaming at each other. Are you going to hear this before you get there? Yes, of course! Well, I mean, not in this adventure. Oh, no, no! The map! It\u2019s fucking unnumbered! It\u2019s just a fucking art piece that you get to follow along with because each room has something like \u201cNorthwest door: Leads back to<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CAVILLO’S TOMB ENTRANCE. \u2022 Northeast door: Opens onto VICTOR’S WALKWAY. \u2022 Southwest door: Swinging panels. Leads to THE TASTING ROOM.\u201d What the fuck? JUST PUT A FUCKING NUMBER ON THE FUCKING MAP! Why would you not do this? Why would you not put the dictionary in alphabetical order? It takes, what, five seconds? Maybe a minute, total, if I do it REALLY well and legible and number the text also? Also, almost every other adventure on earth does this, so you decided not to it? And, where is the level range?! Not on the fucking cover. Not in the text description on DriveThru. I guess I\u2019m buying this because i just love the publisher and\/or designers so much. Fuck that. I\u2019m looking for a level 3-5. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I loathe this sort of thing. More than the tone. The idea that wandering around and interacting with a bunch of skulls in an amphitheater is fun. I mean, it is. But it\u2019s not interactive play. It doesn\u2019t really lead to anything. It\u2019s just another example of one of those museum tour adventures. In those, you get to wander, look, but touching brings you no reward and only danger. In this, there\u2019s no reason to interact with anything. I guess you need a key part, so you\u2019re fucking around looking for it, but, also, this is like writing a two page description of the mundane flower shop in town, along with the little flower girl that runs it, all so you can pass on a rumor to the party. And you can smell a flower! Roll on the table below \u2026 That\u2019s not interactivity. NPC\u2019s get a couple of lines to communicate their vibe and a couple of bullets for what they know, and a couple of sentences for the environment they are on. Much more than that and you\u2019re just Such A Clever Designer. Look, I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s not possible, but I am saying it\u2019s improbable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $2 at DriveThru. The preview is seven pages. You get to see the unnumbered map, and a bunch of meaningless text. Nothing of the actual adventure keys, so as to help you make a purchasing decision. Thus, bad preview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/en\/product\/517605\/the-herbomancer?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Silvio Navaretti, Alberto Iamone, Julien FenoglioForgia StorieOSELevels 3-5 At the end of his long life, the wealthy herbalist Cavillo Spiga required his descendants to tend to the Botanical Cemetery\u2019s garden where he would be buried, under penalty of forfeiting … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9733,"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-9742","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\/04\/herb.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9742","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=9742"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9743,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9742\/revisions\/9743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}