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after the crawling last time, why not heck in for a bit of investigation? Author Ron Lundeen's recently founded company Run Amok Games might have just what you've been looking for! Without further ado:
Six Griffons Haunt
This adventure is 32 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1
page editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving 29 pages for this first adventure by Run
Amok Games, the new company of Ron Lundeen, so let's check it out!
This being an adventure review, the following text contains
massive SPOILERS, so potential players might want to jump to the conclusion.
Still here? Righty right, so essentially we have an
investigation of a haunting - the aristocratic, exclusive Six Griffons lodge
has seen some hauntings and the PCs stumble across a rather violent
manifestation of said haunting. The situation is made more precarious by the
fact that the lodge houses a collection of magic/unusual weapons. Before you
start sighing and devise ways to deprive the PCs of the stolen weapons, rest
assured that they won't waltz out of this adventure with an arsenal of magic
weapons.
Hired by the butler/resident scholar of the lodge to
find the cause of the unrest before a scheduled dinner of lodge members, the
events start to escalate pretty fast. People start dying in rather macabre (and
potentially lethal ways for the players), but without accumulating an overdue
bodycount. The adventure features some rather interesting twists on the
classical haunting that are massive SPOILERS: First of all, the culprit is not
the classic undead, but instead a new creature called haunting elemental. Even
better, they are only the symptom of the true problem and a corrupt member of
the lodge tries to steal what is supposed to be a weapon to grant innumerable
riches. The weapon that is confused with the silver-creating instrument of
destruction is in fact the true culprit - a weapon cursed by its djinn-creators
to forever thirst for the blood of evil creatures: If the weapon's thirst is
not sated, the deadly elementals start manifesting. Have I mentioned that one
character is a djinn in disguise that can act as a savior if the PCs are stuck?
While format-wise the investigation is rather open, it
also contains a timeline and puts some pressure on the PCs to find out the
truth without unnecessary dawdling. It should also be noted that the adventure
comes with 4 extensive handouts the PCs should analyze (which are consolidated
on two pages for ease of printing out in the end) and a gorgeous 4-page
full-color map of the lodge. I do have one very minor gripe: The Haunting
Elementals. They reminded of of an old Planescape-joke with Berkamentals and
quite frankly, could have been other creatures, as they don't feel like
elementals to me.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice
any glitches. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly 2-column standard and the
pdf comes with excessive bookmarks. The beautiful map and b/w-mugshots of the
characters herein help to endear both characters and location to the PCs. This
adventure is a rather fast-paced investigation with several fail-safes if the
PCs get stuck, moderately difficult encounters and an unique flair - following
the tradition of Ron Lundeen's Soldragonn Academy (by Headless Hydra Games),
the adventure does feature a rather dark sense of humor that does not devolve
into a massacre or truly mature material
- indeed, the best way to describe it would be a investigative comedy of
manners with a very dark sense of subtle humor. If played right, suspense and
smiles at the characters herein go hand in hand, at least they did in my game.
My group finished the adventure in one session, meaning that DMs with
clever/investigating characters might want to throw in some additional red
herrings. This and aforementioned personal preference are the only true gripes
I can find, though, resulting in a 5-Rudii verdict - well done!
Need a dreadful villain to terrorize your PCs?
Raxath'Viz, the creeping Rot
This installment of the Infamous Adversary-line is 30
pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 4 pages of advertisement and
1 page SRD, leaving 23 pages of content - that's quite a bunch for the low
price, so let's check it out!
The pdf kicks off with a bang - a stellar, original,
full-page artwork of Raxath'Viz - gorgeous and not something I would have
expected for the price point. You'll hear these words more often in this review.
The description of Raxath'Viz kicks off with a disturbing, well-written
introduction before providing us the statblock of the villain: Raxath'Viz is a
Cleric (Hidden Priest)10/Divine Scion 3/Rogue (Trapsmith) 3 and thus has a
COMPLEX statblock with a LOT of special abilities. The statblock contains a
minor layout error - a part of the statblock is not shaded like the rest of the
block. That does not deter from his wide array of abilities or their usability,
though, just an optical hick-up. Raxath'Viz has an ambition quite profound - be
the instrument of reincarnation for the goddess of disease and become a
demi-god himself in the process.
In order to accomplish this lofty goal, he has to
succeed in 6 profane boons, which are detailed not only with prophecy-like
lines, but also how Raxath'Viz plans to accomplish/accomplished them - this
prophecy per se could be seen as a seed for a whole campaign, if desired. If
you want to use a Raxath'Viz over the course of a campaign, you'll also get an
advancement track for him as well as 3 additional plot hooks. Sample lore-DCs
are provided to go along the campaign and plot seeds. If you want further ideas
n how Raxath'Viz operates, you'll see it in yet another short piece of fiction
before we get to his perhaps most valuable ally, Zogulryk the unholy, a male
Oytugh Oracle 10 who is the one true ally/friend (if such a word is applicable)
the Kobold has.
The installment does not end here, though, and instead
goes on to provide sample names and personalities for the Festering Lesion,
Raxath'Viz rag-tag band of kobold followers. We also get some sample custom
traps the clever kobold employs and especially a consuming jack-in-the-box is
worthy of Batman's Joker in its twisted humor. Of course, the Kobold also has
pets, namely a variety of otyugh-mutations, one of which, the two-headed
guardian otyugh, is also presented with a full statblock.
Unbelievably, we get even MORE: The profane Vessel of
his goddess, a giant CR 20-super otugh remains even after his defeat, waiting
for the day when a divinity will emerge from its cancerous growths and posing
the final obstacle for the PCs to squash the ambitions of Maramaga, a goddess
of pestilence spawned from a barbaric ritualistic druidic sacrifice and her own
2-page write-up is surprisingly compelling in imagery and tone, making her more
than yet another deity of disease.
The pdf closes with information on a faction of (semi-)
unwitting pawns to Raxath'Viz machinations that shall remain unnamed for
spoiler's sake as well as a new devastating disease.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are good, though not excellent:
I noticed this one layout-glitch and an incorrect use of the -eth-suffix for a
verb in the prophecy. All in all, though, less than 5 hick-ups, all minor, over
23 pages. Layout is new, different and beautiful - while not as printer-friendly
as TPK Games' previous layout, the grey borders make for a visually pleasing
reading experience. The artwork of Raxath'Viz is STUNNING. It makes a KOBOLD
look intimidating as hell. The villain
per se features a lengthy statblock, and as has been the tradition with TPK
Games alongside all other statblocks in this pdf, been excessively hyperlinked
to d20pfsrd.com, making usage of the file on a laptop extremely easy. The pdf
is also excessively bookmarked and *drumroll* comes with full hero lab support
of all the creatures herein - great for the people who use the tool (though I
don't).
Content-wise, I'll just say: Wow. Temerlyth was a very
good villain. Raxath'Viz blows him out of the water. The sheer amount of
content provided in this pdf is awesome - the short stories are well-written,
Raxath'Viz's statblock is complex, we get unique servants and allies, a new
(and cool) goddess, a dread prophecy (including his plans to accomplish it - a
potential campaign in itself) and a villain that acts SMART. Oh yeah, and new
traps. The only thing anyone could ask for from this file that is not there is
statblocks for less accomplished versions of him, but seeing that we get the
high-level version, they can potentially be reverse-engineered. This pdf
provides a LOT of content for 3 bucks - much more than I would have expected
and at a higher quality, too. In fact, I'm going so far as to say that TPK
Games have just upped the ante on NPC/Villain-supplements in the low
price-range by a considerable amount. While the minor glitches would usually
result in about half a star being detracted, the excellent bang-for-buck ratio
more than does its share to counter this minor blemish. Thus, my final verdict
will be 5 stars and the Endzeitgeist seal of approval - a truly deadly,
devious, frightening kobold villain indeed and a great testament to the level
with which the Infamous Adversary-line has been improving.
All right, that's it for now, as always: Thank you for reading my ramblings,
Endzeitgeist out.
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