old-school Archives

Posted on November 14, 2013November 17, 2013 by Mike Myler — Leave a comment

A Simple 5-Step Approach for Complex Characters

A couple of weeks ago we got quite a response to an article (10 Ways to Run a Better Tabletop Game) and several folks responded with how they implement in-depth character creation—thank you! One of these approaches is so simple that its originator, John Hughes, broke it into a simple sketch. His thoughts on that area of game design are below. Enjoy!

Image_Portfolio_104_Fantasy Jason Walton 60 It’s never easy coming up with a character concept—knowing your character’s goals, hopes, quirks and foibles. Too often we ignore the intangible qualities of our imagined hero and focus on the mechanics of the numbers and abilities instead. During a World of Darkness campaign, a dear friend (but lackluster roleplayer) came up to me one day, proclaiming proudly, “I’ve got a new character concept for a vampire: Dominate plus Telepathy.”

That’s not a concept—that’s two powers strung together—and while that might be the extreme of mistaking mechanics for personality, I believe that all of us occasionally make this trade-off. Whether the setting is a casual pick-up game or a convention event, when faced with a different group at the table and a new piece of paper in hand, the temptation as the player to develop only a cursory profile can be overwhelming. Additionally, other players might enjoy the game for the sake of the combat and don’t want to divert time and effort into fleshing out their creation.

Over time, I’ve developed simple steps that, regardless of playing style, encourages quick but meaningful examination of a hero that more fully invests players in their creations.

Step 1: Five Adjectives
The first step is to come up with five adjectives to describe your character; the idea is not to just develop a string of five words from the same category: e.g. physical traits like strong, swift, lithe, nimble and sure-footed. Without variety, five adjectives are no better than one. Instead pick one word from each of the following five categories to give a character instant depth:

Past This should describe something about how the character arrived at today.

Where did they come from?
How did training or other major events change and shape them?
What was their family situation (or lack thereof) and how did it affect their adolescence?

Future You have one word describing the hero’s formative experience, now imagine the more aspirational facets of this individual.

How do they want to be remembered
What word best describes what this character hopes to do?
What mark do they want to leave or what role would they like to fulfill?

Self Bringing the time vista back to the present, now we’ll look inward.

What word best describes the character in behavior, philosophy, or appearance?
Is this a way the hero presents themselves as a facade, or does this represent a true personality facet?

Others Look around the hero and empathize with how they must feel about the world.

What word best describes what your character think about others? (The definition of others could be other tribes, races, traditional enemies, close allies, nations, classes, alignments, religions.)
How does your character treat them?
What does the hero expect outsiders to think upon meeting?

Stuff How an individual deals with other people can be completely different from how they deal with objects.

What word best describes the character’s relation to goods, services and social bearing?
Do they show an interest in tangible objects like weapons or wealth?
Does the character prefer intangibles like fame or power?

Remember, the quality of adjectives count! Why be “happy” when you can be cheerful, joyful, enthusiastic or even maniacal? This step is a great opportunity to break out those words you only memorized for the SAT; you may never use “nonagenarian” in a sentence, but it could be the perfect word for your wizard, who might also be decrepit or wizened (assuming your wizard is a human—for an elven wizard, “nonagenarian” is the equivalent to immature or untried.)

Don’t be afraid to try unconventional words for your concept! Many people can see a cleric as devout, but what if hanging around the temple all the time instead has made the disciple ingratiating or even sycophantic? Words with greater context or specific meaning will produce a more concrete vision of the character from this exercise.

Step 2: Draw Your Character
When describing the five areas above, I’ll draw little pictures to help visualize what I mean—I also draw in an effort to overcome any resistance or fear of this next step. This part of the exercise tends to draw heavily on the class, armor, or weapon of a character, so in some ways the illustration serves only to reinforce the role of those mechanics. Nonetheless, by encouraging the players to draw the character, the image triggers other areas of the brain, giving visual context to both the adjectives and the mechanics. The drawing doesn’t have to be great or even good, but encourage the player to try—the rewards are immediate and the practice makes the next time easier.

Note: I can’t claim to have devised this step entirely on my own—I came across a version of this idea in On The Edge by Jonathan Tweet and have been using it for two decades.

I discourage names from movies or books when players flesh out the last part of the character. An original name reinforces ownership of the hero—names like Bob or Fred can disrupt the fantasy mood—so put some effort into a plausibly authentic name.

Hopefully this quick, easy exercise will help make characters more interesting for both you and your companions during your next adventure!

Submitted by Jonathan Hughes [who also submitted these pictures as examples]

[Edited by Mike Myler]

Do you have a contribution or idea for Meta Thursdays? Send us your ideas (after reading the submission guidelines) to submit(at)adventureaweek.com with “Meta Thursday” in the subject line!

Posted on October 17, 2013November 11, 2013 by Mike Myler — Leave a comment

Confessions of an Evil GM: Sandbox vs. Railroading

B1_map_GM When I started playing RPGs, railroading was the only way ahead. Then something called a sandbox came along. I initially thought, “isn’t that where children play and cats do their business?” That’s only partly accurate; sandbox design is a way of making the campaign world more alive.

More alive? I just wanted to kill things with my character. Still, over time I came to love the new, open worlds previously unavailable to me – it was mind-blowing just thinking that I could go anywhere. I ultimately found sandbox design to be amazing and used (or perhaps abused) it for years. I went off the track just because it was expected that I could, and I could have been a better player if I hadn’t.

To this day I still expect a GM to know the proprietor of every tavern in the campaign setting. Now that I’ve taken up the gamemastering reigns myself, my views on the sandbox approach have changed…or have they?

Let’s consider it against its most polar counterpart: railroading.

I hate pure sandbox; learning everything in a campaign setting by heart? No thank you. Because I have a life, you ask? No, because there are too many cool campaign settings for me to reasonably do that (although I might add that I do have a life). For me the sandbox is of infinite size, both as a player and a GM. The player side of me loves the opportunities, but the GM part of my brain despises it, as the party can run everywhere and expect you to be prepared. This might be because my players are an evil lot, but in my opinion it is because if you give them a possibility, they will seize it. I know I would, so it is only fair that they do so when I’m the GM.

To combat the infinite size of the sandbox, I turned back to railroading. As we played around in the sandbox, we discovered the failings of railroading; it was restrictive and often proved to an impediment rather than aid to the GM. Basically, there’s a good way of railroading, and there is the bad way of doing it. Let me give you examples of both.

The wrong way:

The party is summoned to the count’s castle. A railroading trick, the players are summoned by a powerful NPC so that no one tries anything, because the NPC is so powerful.

You must go to X and before the next full moon. Another trick, make sure the distance and time given allows for no or little leeway.

Carry this treasure/ransom/document to X. Make sure the item in question is so valuable that the party will not take any chance that might endanger the item.

Arrive at X, and sit in an antimagicfield and watch the villains take off with the ransom. This is the result of bad railroading; now we can wait until next time, where we will be sent off to somewhere else.

Did this actually happen to me? Yes, and I hated it; it was boring and restrictive.

The right way:

Give the players an awesome handout. A map, a prophecy, or a book, if you are so inclined (I am looking at you Mike Myler, giving them a book, talk about raising the stakes for the rest of us.) Seriously with a handout like a map you can control their most likely path of travel (and compensate for going off the trail) and the same goes for a prophecy; any handout that controls some of or any part of their whole journey will help you narrow down your sandbox, which will help you make the passage to the destination more believable. You can prepare a few encounters and read up on the most likely towns they will visit, thereby making sandboxing a breeze.

I must admit that I don’t make handouts for all campaigns, but putting together an intriguing verse or prophecy gets easier with practice.

Checklist for a successful sandbox campaign:

1) Get familiar with or prepare a couple of backwater villages, including a small inn where the party can stay should they go too far from the path.

2) A list of names for quickly naming minor NPCs, so we can avoid the Hanson family of farmers, and the brothers Jonas.

3) You should know where the clerics that are capable of raising and resurrecting are located in the world – there is no free resurrection in every little village.

4) A list of rumors with details conveniently located on or close to the path you want the PCs to take.

5) Lists of the various city guards and mages might come in handy as well.

To sum up my ramblings:

Narrow down the sandbox.

Use an awesome handout (prophecy, map or otherwise) to influence the PCs path.

Prepare lists of useful details for the campaign.

Submitted by Brian Wiborg Monster

[Edited by Mike Myler]

Do you have a contribution or idea for Meta Thursdays? Send us your ideas (after reading the submission guidelines) to submit(at)adventureaweek.com with “Meta Thursday” in the subject line!

Posted on August 1, 2013September 29, 2013 by Mike Myler — 1 Comment

An Alternative Approach with Myth and Magic

Myth & Magic is from a company called New Haven Games; I was one of the many backers of the Kickstarter for the player’s guide (there’s a free starter guide available here) and DM guide. As with many of these projects out there, things have been slow and the fate of the ultimate outcome doesn’t look too promising but as a backer I got a PDF copy of the aforementioned player’s guide, a PDF of the player journals that were made and I simply use a copy of the DM starter guide. I sent it all to Kinkos and use these as my primary books, along with my old 2nd edition AD&D tomes and the Pathfinder rule set.

In a nutshell, Myth & Magic keeps the 2nd edition feel by using weapon and non-weapon proficiencies. Classes have choices, but less than they have in Pathfinder; they’re more structured as opposed to ‘pick anything you want’ and the spells are a bit more old school than the more polished Pathfinder magic.

The are two reasons I looked for a new system (and don’t get me wrong I love Pathfinder) ; first off, I was spending too much prep time before each game, especially at higher levels and if I didn’t prep, I wasted time looking up rules and page flipping at the game table. Secondly I noticed that my group was going through the motions when playing. Sure, we had fun and laughed but I wasn’t getting the old excitement from the games like I used to back in the day. So I started looking at my old stuff but over the years we’ve advanced too far to go back to something too simple like 1st edition D&D, and while 2nd edition D&D was my big chunk of gaming it was clunky. At the Paizo boards I came across Myth & Magic and it’s great; it puts the DM back in charge without too much rule searching and I can make more things up on the fly.

Currently I’m running my players through the Pathfinder Adventure Path “Carrion Crown” and we are having a blast, and I use the stats mostly as written in the books. Since it’s Paizo’s attempt at a gothic horror setting I’m also incorporating old Ravenloft games/characters into the plot as well; when I use the old stuff, it easily converts. I’m spending less prep time for each session which helps me focus more on story elements, and by having a few less rules it puts most of the decisions back in my hands and my players have gone back to being more creative.

The Pathfinder/3.5 feel of the system comes from using ascending armor class, the three saving throw stats and instead of feats, they have class talents (and there are not as many of them); all in all I like it. They’ve also created the Base 20 system, where the DM sets most of the DC numbers (referred to as TC for Target Complexity). The challenge of the task to accomplish is chosen to be Basic (a TC of 5); Average (a TC of 10), Superior (a TC of 15) or Exceptional (a TC of 20). There’s also a Legendary category with a TC of 25. Proficiencies are ranked and provide bonuses to rolls rather than regular skill ranks. This isn’t true of combat, but applies to pretty much everything else.

BASE is the acronym in use here. To search a room a PC can use the nonweapon proficiency (NWP) Perception or simply make a Wisdom check, depending on which system you use (as proficiencies are optional). You can have Basic, Average, Superior or Exceptional skill level in each NWP (+2, +4, +6 and +8 respectively) although no first level character can be more adept than Average. Attributes are treated as 1-for-1 in terms of providing modifiers, making an 11 +1, a 12 +2 and so on and so forth.

For example, a first level thief with an Intelligence of 14 gets a +4 modifier. He spends his NWP points to take Average skill level in Perception. When searching a room, he rolls D20 + 8 (+4 Intelligence and +4 Average level) and is trying to beat the TC the DM sets (which is based on how easy or difficult it would be to find something hidden.) Meanwhile a cleric with a Wisdom of 18 has a +8 modifier to search the room, simply rolling an attribute check (which comes out to the same D20 + 8 to roll.) Please note that Myth & Magic has charts for each ability and the ability check modifiers are higher than either 2nd Edition was or Pathfinder is. For example, a Wisdom of 18 gives you a +8 to all Wisdom ability checks, but only a +3 to your Fortitude Saving Throw. There’s separate columns for each of these under the relevant attributes.

Instead of the party’s thief taking 10 to search for traps, then opening the door, seeing giant rats, make a hit to throw torch at them and so on, we were treated to him making a Perception roll, spotting the beady red eyes, throwing open the door and making an acrobatic leap up onto the tower walls to get out of the way as he hurled the lit torch at the pack of rats scurrying out to attack. Later he stylishly did a back flip over the party (being in the front and landing at the rear) to avoid the oncoming haunt approaching them, the sneaky bugger!

There are enough options to keep the players happy but more structure to keep character creation and leveling changes to a minimum. True, most of what’s described above is just that and easily mutable, and I can do that with the normal Pathfinder rules, but this new hybrid is working out better for us and ultimately that’s what matters at the gaming table.

–Dennis Pascale

(edited by Mike Myler)

Do you have a contribution or idea for Meta Thursdays? Send us your ideas (after reading the submission guidelines) at submit(at)adventureaweek.com with “Meta Thursday” in the subject line!

Posted on December 18, 2012 by ENDZEITGEIST — Leave a comment

C2: Goblin Cave

Hej everybody,

today I’ll take a look at AaW’s second classic play module,

C2 -Goblin Cave

This module is 28 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/ToC, 1 page SRD, leaving 25 pages of content, so let’s check this out!

This being an adventure-module, the following contains SPOILERS. Potential players may wish to jump to the conclusion. Oh. The module is called “Goblin Cave”. Guess what you’ll get? Goblins. In a cave? Perhaps. Yeah that might be it. Seriously, though. The title is lame as hell.

Still here? All right! The village of Svor has recently suffered from incursions of goblins that are oddly well trained and since the isolated village is rather small, it falls to the PCs to put an end to the threat. After a round of investigation gathering (if desired), the PCs can track their way to the cavernous hideout of the goblins and it’s all old-schoolish dungeon crawl from here on out: In order to enter the cave situated at the edge of the murky lake, the PCs will have to wade through stagnant water and then best goblin sentries and make their way through a complex, in which they’ll be challenged by slippery cooking oil, worg-riding goblin cavalry and even make an uncommon ally: Grog the former chief of the tribe of greenskins is now a ghost that has been supplanted by the wizard Taraxian.

In an ironic twist, neither filth fever, nor poisonous spores make for the most deadly hazard in this place, but rather an overstocked storage area that might have the PCs buried in an avalanche of goods. Have I mentioned the rust monster that will add both to the chaos and frighten the players fearing for their precious goods…

Both the stolen goods and Taraxian’s library are rather detailed and the finale is also rather neat, offering not only a classic tactic, but also a circle which is a representation of the Circulus Sanguinus-spell the wizard employed to take command of the goblins. Whether with or without the help of the goblin ghost, the PCs will have to face down the wizard and hopefully manage to avoid slaying a controlled acolyte. If they have helped the ghost, he may even point them towards his hidden treasure stash, which is a neat mini-puzzle to end the module.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are very good, I didn’t notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to AaW’s two-column standard with a white background, following the standard of the C-series. The pdf comes fully bookmarked with nested bookmarks and will get herolab support, though the files have not gone online as I write these lines. The cartography provides us with an awesome full-color map of both the dungeon and the overworld, with the latter coming in two versions, one of which is player-friendly – kudos!

I expected to hate this module. It’s rather short and has one of the most boring titles imaginable. But, here’s the catch: It’s actually rather good and has some memorable moments: If worg-riding goblins flinging disgusting, hot goblin soup at PCs doesn’t sound like fun, what is? The option to unearth a hidden treasure (even one as paltry as a goblin’s) is also rather iconic and a cool idea and the complex storage encounter is neat as well. All in all, this is definitely a solid, well-written module, but also one that sports a distinct lack of je-ne-sais-quoi. The spark. The additional environmental challenge. The encounter that will have the players talk about it for days to come. While it won’t win any prices for ingenuity and lacks the vast iconicity of C1, it is still a low-level adventure that has its moments. I’d also consider it a good introduction to old-school play-styles since it can be difficult, but not nearly as deadly as comparable modules like C1 or the offerings of Frog God Games. Also, the module is rather on the short side and in the light of all of this, I can settle for a (at least for me) surprising verdict of 3.5 stars, rounded down to 3 for the purpose of this platform – for a module named “Goblin Cave”. Yeah. I still can’t get over the title.

Endzeitgeist out.

Posted on December 12, 2012 by ENDZEITGEIST — Leave a comment

C1: Alagoran’s Gem

I’m going to take a look at Adventureaweek.com‘s first module in their Classic-Play-Series, which is wholly devoted to old-school gaming, so let’s take a look, shall we?

Alagoran’s Gem

This module is 48 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC (& recommended reading for those not familiar with old-school style gaming) and 1 page SRD, leaving us with a total of 44 pages of content, so let’s take a look at the first of AdventureaWeek.com’s C-series of classic modules in the spirit of old-school gaming!

This being an adventure review, the following contains SPOILERS. Potential players may wish to jump to the conclusion. All right, still here?

Let’s take a look! Intended for levels 3-5, the premise of the module is rather simple: A wealthy merchant once named Alagoran sought a way to keep his belongings safe after a burglary and thus invested his fortune in a magnificent gem. Edged further on by his paranoia, he had a deadly complex crafted to keep both him and his prized possession safe. Alagoran has vanished. He stopped showing up for rations and, while some time has passed, none have yet returned or claimed the prize of the magnificent gem. Enter the PCs, who should then feel like a certain famous barbarian who was known to have pulled off some deadly heists in his youth. Props if you got that reference.

So yeah, via 4 different, albeit simple sample hooks the PCs are recruited to test their mettle against the dungeon paranoid Alagoran has crafted – but can they prevail? From the very start, a sense of puzzles and antiquity sweeps the PCs, as they get a chance to avoid a fight with a powerful undead guardian by mentioning a correct name and mundane, yet still sickening mildew, green slime and magic mouths that taunt them. Oh, have I mentioned the traps and the twisted ways in which they can actually be bypassed?

Pit traps and acid arrows are the least of the PC’s worries if they don’t take care – especially if they activate a certain magical door and get hit by a wave of energy that may not only pummel them into a pit, it may also eliminate ALL 1-use magic items and activate those that can be activated! Rod of fireball? BOOM. Potions and scrolls? Ruined! OUCH! PCs hit by this one will complain, but honestly – it can be avoided, it’s iconic and it FEELS just right…so kudos for including this rather nasty effect! Speaking of nasty: Even before they have went to the inner rooms of the dungeon, the PCs can find a mushroom forest including ogres, unhealthy puffball spores and be infected with dysentery (Yes, not filth fever or slimy doom. Seriously. I like it when not every damn dirty place features the same two standard diseases everyone seems to use…) even before they have to pass a gauntlet-style corridor full of magic-imbued arrow traps. Also nice: a trolley-based refuse-system leading to an otyugh’s nice home…
Where the module starts to become interesting is with a circular room, which can be considered a many-phased, complex trap that has no easy way to solve and cannot be simply deactivated by a successful disable device roll – instead, the PCs will have to brave the danger with brawns and use their brains to pass the trap – have I mentioned that the trap features rancid boar’s blood, acid, the chance to drown and a pack of starving ghouls? Speaking of acid: Hanging, tilting platforms over a sea of acid can also be found herein – guarding a nice bluff of a fake treasure room that has the iconic three chests, of which, of course, all are the wrong ones. The dungeon also features yet another false gem guarded by an Indy trap as well as an alternate entrance, an owlbear, an option to parlay with a tribe of orcs, a carrion crawler and undead ignited by a gas leak that may blow the PCs to smithereens. There is also a river of lava including… *drums* a dead magic zone! Yes! We have not nearly enough of those in most current modules and I’m not ironic there – magic should never be too predictable and challenges like this, where magical prowess alone does not suffice, add to this sentiment. Before the end of the dungeon, though, we have yet more lava, animated ropes (trip, trip, trip the adventurers into the river of lava…), superheated, unhealthy, sulfurous air and then, the final room, in which the PCs have one more chance to use their wits – if they fail, they will have to contend with a rather lethal array of traps and might even be petrified (though that is reversible by concluding the module). If they by now have a good grasp of Alagoran’s personality, they might be able to avoid these traps and even find the true, fabled gem – provided they can defeat its final guardian.
The module closes with stats in both 3.5 and PFRPG, which include 4 ready-to go replacement PC-stats should any perish in the module as well as a player-friendly key AND trap/secret-door less version of the map -Bravo!

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn’t notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly white background and is otherwise the standard 2-column standard we’ve come to expect from AaW, including color-coded boxes for rules, read-aloud text etc. The pdf comes fully bookmarked with nested bookmarks and is scheduled to get herolab files, but at the writing of this review, these have not yet been added. The cartography of the dungeon in full color is beautiful as I’ve come to expect from AaW-publications and the player-friendly map sans traps and helps, secret doors and keys is awesome to have and should be industry standard.

I honestly didn’t expect much from this module, seeing how often “old-school” is used as a synonym for “nothing new/creative” here – that’s not the case here. Yes, the story is simplistic, there is not a grand mini-game or some other twist – but know what? The design-philosophy, much like in the excellent modules by Frog God Games oozes this sense of antiquity, of looming danger and death, of unpredictability and the NEED, not the option, to use your brain in order to survive. This is not dungeoneering for people who cry when their character dies. This a module that oozes old-school flair, that evokes a sense of accomplishment when completed and, while it is a harsh mistress, remains a fair sojourn – this is no meat-grinder, it is a hard, challenging module. Not Rappan Athuk-level hard, mind you, but hard. And boy do I like it for that – the use of hazards, traps (that are not disabled via 1 roll) and enemies make this not only a blast from the past that evokes nostalgia via its themes and design, it also makes this module a stellar first offering for the C-series. I’m completely and fully recommending this very cheap module and look forward to seeing how the rest of the C-line will hold up to my scrutiny. If what I’ve written here even remotely intrigues you and if you’re looking for a well-written dungeon-exploration – here you go. My final verdict? 5 stars, endzeitgeist seal of approval.

As always, thank you for reading my ramblings,

Endzeitgeist out.

Posted on September 6, 2012 by ENDZEITGEIST — Leave a comment

Rise of The Drow I: Descent into the Underworld

Hej everybody!

How better than to delve into a series of reviews than with an epic trilogy? The Adventureaweek.com-crew has recently launched their first multiple module spanning epic, the Rise of the Drow and today, I’m going to take a look at Part 1!

Rise of The Drow I: Descent into the Underworld

This pdf is 121 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving a whopping 116 pages of content, so let’s check this out!

This being an adventure-review, the following contains SPOILERS. Potential players might wish to jump to the conclusion.

All right, still here? The underdark is boiling from the flames of war – Maelora of House Gullion (nice tribute to fellow reviewer KTFish7, I assume?) has taken control over the drow trade-hub of Holoth via an interesting coup d’état – allying herself with the alien Vidre and siphoning power from an artifact granted by these enigmatic, crystalline schemers, she indeed triumphed and funneled the souls of her captives through the artifact to gain immense power. Unbeknown to her, half of the souls have been funneled to the greedy clutches of the alien Vidre and sacrifices have started to become harder and harder to come by. Not one to be dictated what to do, the matron managed to sever the binding ties and arcane entwinements of the pact between her and the Vidre via the Spider-Goddess’ help (we’re looking at old-school drow here, obviously) for the promise of a conquest of the worlds above – the goddess has spoken and so it shall be done. The Vidre, meanwhile, prepare for war – their thirst for souls must be slaked.

Enter the PCs via a relative of Rybalka’s blacksmith Quorron, a female named Miah, ambassador of Embla, a dwarven city that seeks to unite the denizens of the underdark to address the drow-problem. Time is of the essence, though, and the PCs will have to take a dangerous road into the underdark via the ruins of Krelgar keep (5 level-mini-dungeon, lavishly cartographed in a stunning full-color map) – and something is definitely amiss, indicated by the dimensionally shackled bralani the PCs encounter there. After encountering the first troupes of drow (thankfully only zombies), the PCs may be in for a surprise – if they can decipher a missive, they’ll realize that the dark elves have planned a raid on the surface world. Even cooler: Drow Paper, Quills and Ink are described and they are anything but common – what about e.g. quills made from giant spider fangs? Neat! Nevertheless, the PCs should think about warning Rybalka – whether they do or not, the repercussions will be felt. However, the immediate threat, the boss of this dungeon, will prove to be a challenge – the disturbing drow mhorg Yul will prove to be a worthy challenge, no small thanks to his items and the new “Third eyes of fear” that lets the users blink.

The journey through the underdark, accompanied by a cool map as well as information on various types of gases and multiple encounters will also see the PCs encounter their first driders, a wizard of house Gullion and then culminate in a chance for them to disrupt a drow raid on a dwarven caravan and then finally arrive at the gates of Embla, where the second module of the trilogy will start.

The pdf also includes the Titanic Beastmaster PrC. The class gets d8, 2+Int skills per level, full BAB, good fort- and ref-saves and focuses on taming and training the larger monsters – no spell progression or the like and the requirements for the PrC are rather steep, making it an accomplishment to actually qualify for it while granting massive enhancements to the special companion granted by it.

On page 41, the statblock-index starts with an encounter table and takes up all space till page 117 to deliver all the stats for both D&D 3.5 and PFRPG. Unfortunately, the index is not bookmarked, which makes this vast section of the pdf harder to navigate than it should by any means.

The pdf closes with two player-friendly versions of the stellar maps.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are very good, though not perfect – I encountered some minor glitches, but none that severely impeded my enjoyment of the module. Layout adheres to AaW’s full-color two-column standard and the cartography is simply awesome. I was also blown away by some of the artworks – the drow depicted mostly can stand up to the Paizo-level regarding the quality of the art. However, there are also some jarring full-color illustrations that feel somewhat shoehorned into the adventure, are of a lesser quality and detract from a unified look. I frankly would have preferred them to be left out. The pdf comes with a printer-friendly version and nested bookmarks. At the time of the writing of this review, Herolab-files have not yet been provided, but are planned.

“Rise of the Drow I” is an interesting module in that it builds up a sense of threat and consequences for the region of Rybalka and its surroundings and works well to set up not only the drow as a credible threat, but also to evoke a sense of grand changes afoot. The environmental effects and cultural details like the paper/ink etc. they use lends an added sense of credibility to the dark elves. It should be noted, though, that the drow of AaW seem to worship a certain spider-goddess and thus are different from the demon-worshipping drow of Golarion – I’m already curious how this worship interacts with a fabled origin that hearkens back to Norse mythology. All in all, this is a good module with already rather significant decisions to make, but judging the repercussions and consequences etc., for now, remains hard – I look forward to seeing how the sequels can implement these diverging paths. Content-wise, thus, there’s not much to complain about. Add to that the jarring difference in quality between beautiful and rather hideous artworks and we have some factors that conspire to keep this module from the full 5 stars. Thus, my final verdict will be a solid 4 stars with your humble reviewer looking forward to seeing how the saga continues.

All right, as always: Thank you for reading my ramblings – and see you soon in part 2!

Endzeitgeist out.