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If you're like me, you came to know Paizo via Dungeon and Dragon and while I LOVE Pathfinder and the books they put out, the whole format in fact, I also think that Kobold Quarterly and its success proves that there's a market for magazine like Dragon. Well, now, Rite Publishing steps up to provide us with a magazine containing adventures in the vein of the Dungeon magazine, so let's take a look!
Adventure Quarterly #1
This new
magazine is 76, one page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD,
1 page advertisement, 1 page back cover, leaving a whopping 70 pages of
content, so what exactly is this new magazine?
Well, first
of all, it is a collection of 3 adventures by ADAM DAIGLE, TIM CONNORS and TIM
HITCHCOCK. Yep. If those names don't ring any bells, I probably can't help you
- they are stellar authors. Secondly, we get short supplemental articles. Sound
familiar? The closest analogy I could think of is the following: If KQ is the
spiritual successor of Dragon magazine, Adventure Quarterly could be considered
the heir to Dungeon magazine and the very first module by Adam Daigle could
have been released in that form in Dungeon, but before I go into that, be aware
that from here on
SPOILERS
reign. Potential players read on at their own risk and to the detriment of
their fun! I'll clearly denote the end of the SPOILERS before the conclusion.
Still here?
All right! Adam Daigle's "Too many Cooks" is a delightfully quirky
short scenario for low-level characters that can easily be placed in just about
any larger town/city/metropolis. In this scenario, a megalomaniacal cook has
stroke a deal with some mites to provide psychotropic berries. In order to get
rid of his competition, he essentially is abducting and drugging them. Whether
you intersperse the module throughout another adventure or run it straight, the
PCs investigation will slowly piece together what's going on and potentially be
drugged themselves, at least temporarily. Once they have braved tengu-raiders,
massive rat infestations and done their research, they're going to be in for a
truly awesome showdown in a large kitchen, including a table of improvised
weapons, complex potential hazards and the possibility to get hook-impaled and
then dropped into a meat-grinder! For extra fun, add Adamant's "Cooking
with lass" and you're in for an unconventional scenario with a fun tweak
and some potential for memorable and hilarious scenes - develop the psychotropic
hallucinations for extra fun. It should also be noted that the module comes
with one page containing dundjinni-created maps of all the locations in the
module with supreme details and in full color.
The second
adventure is by Tim Connors and called the "Book of Promises" and has
a basic premise that is most interesting - souls are at stake. A cabal of
devil-worshipping never-do-wells has a deal with the great A to collect souls
and all their infernal contracts are stored in the "Book of
Promises", which is stored in a vault - the PC's task will be to reclaim
the book and prevent thus the souls from going to hell. Add the recent
torrential deluge that has resulted in massive floods in the city and
everything just got complicated. even
worse, the vault in which the book is stored is protected by an extremely
potent magical defense that prohibits access - unless the supplicant has a
special kind of permission. Which the PCs might obtain from their quest-giver
in a midnight game of poker/cards that can be a frame or an actual game.
Unfortunately for the PCs, they are not the only party sent to retrieve
something from the vault - apart from the devil-worshipping, shapeshifting
members of the forked legion, they'll have to contend (or even ally) with a duo
of araneas and a coven of witches, which, in a nice twist, might offer the
means to determine how to destroy the infamous book. The delve into the vault
turns out to be a rather interesting one that takes the water and location into
account and culminates in a final, epic free-for-all brawl between the
different factions the PCs encounter during their heist. And then there's an
option for a truly heroic sacrifice to end the threat of the artifact once and
for all...
The final
new adventure by Tim Hitchcock, at least to me, takes the awesome-cake. Set
after a war that has just ended, the PCs are presumed to be the disillusioned
survivors of grand war that now has them return to a backwater swampy area
under the command of an immortal godking Xilomac VIII - megalomaniacal and
ancient, the godking's spire rests on muddy ground, ensuring that each year
numerous of his subjects are worked to death to prevent his own personal take
on the tower of babel-trope falling to ruin. It is after a hunt for an
insurgent that the PCs arrive in the eponymous festerbog, where, they meet a
long-lost brother of one of the PCs, who has been cornered by the
elite-assassins of the god-king. With his dying breath or thankful for his
life, the insurgent imparts crucial information: The constant rebuilding of the
spire has left a cistern sunken and
unused, but still - a valid way into the otherwise impenetrable fortress of the
tyrant. With the keys now in their hand, it is up to the PCs to brave the
sludge and muck and defeat the strangely mishappen creatures below, the
degenerate kin.
The
revelation of where they come from, pronounced by the godking's now unbodied
and forever cursed ancestors (which turn out to be floating brains and spines),
sends the PCs on the right track - into the complex system and up to the
top-most-levels of the mad king's ziggurat, where they will not only marvel at
the beauty, but also find a more than deadly foe in the godking. The adventure
ends not with his defeat, though: An artifact, the soul siphon, which has
enabled him to live and created the despicable kin, must still be destroyed,
lest it fall into other hands. In order to do so, though, the PCs will have to
brave the deepest recesses of the ziggurat's system and finally find "A
Thing called Us" - an advanced, extremely potent meld (those of you who
read Hyperconscious know what I'm talking about), updated to PFRPG (and by the
way - the thing on the cover) awaits the PCs. In order to destroy the artifact,
the meld has to consume it and a PC must hold it. Wrestling free the brave one
before he is absorbed should be quite a challenge, especially with the being
spawning foul flesh salves. Worse yet, the thing starts to mutate once the PCs
have fed it and the escape through the system before the rapidly growing beast
dies in a terrible shockwave. This escape is not only expertly presented in
cinematic quality, but also timed IRL, making not only the PCs, but also the
players sweat. It should be noted that this adventure comes with 4 sample
12th-level characters with extensive backgrounds that are intertwined with
certain aspects of the module. If you want to run your own PCs through it, some
setting the stage and planning is required.
Oh, and
what I've forgotten to mention: This adventure is wholly compatible with
Psionics Unleashed and not only makes for a stellar example of Sword &
Sorcery-style adventure design with a sense of bronze-age-antiquity, but also
for one of the finest psionic adventures I have yet read. You can definitely
see that Tim Hitchcock has been influenced by Nicolas Logue and his stellar
adventure-writing - the imagery, sense of dread secrets best left undiscovered,
a general feeling of decline and decay, nomenclature and the expertly-created
psionic foes make for a truly compelling scenario, whether with the pregens or
your own group. If you like psionics, this alone justifies the fair asking
price. if you're on the fence on whether you and your players enjoy them,
however, this is definitely an awesome example on how to use them in your game.
Tim Hitchcock not only proves that he is a stellar author of dark scenarios,
but also gets the rules. Two thumbs up!
The pdf
closes with a write-up of the secret society from the second adventure as well
as a contribution by Raging Swan mastermind Creighton Broadhurst: The random
tribal name generator! In 3 easy steps and over 4 pages, we get descriptor and
words that can add a sense of wonder to even the most basic humanoids you fight
as well as identity and detail to your world. Great little toolkit!
Conclusion:
Editing and
formatting are very good, as I've come to expect from RiP. I only noticed 3
minor glitches over the whole issue. Layout adheres to RiP's 2-column
full-color standard and the artworks are mostly stock. The pdf comes fully
bookmarked and with a MASSIVE map-pack that contains high-res versions of the
maps as well as tifs, pngs and collated versions of the maps with legends etc.
to print out. Unfortunately numbers and secret door indicators are included in
them, but still: The beautifully-detailed dundjinni-made full-color maps for
each adventure are a massive plus in my book. I've said it in the beginning of
this review and I'll say it again: If KQ is the successor to Dragon, then AQ is
the successor to Dungeon. Especially for a first issue (remember the humble
beginnings), this magazine is VERY impressive. With the quality authors and
their excellent modules, there is simply no reason not to get this - each
adventure in itself has at least one or more original, unique ideas going for it
and Creighton's generator is a neat bonus indeed. Psionic fans HAVE to get this
anyway, but even if you're a die-hard hater of them, the other two adventures
still justify the low asking-price. And reading "Soul Siphon" might
actually change your mind. Ok, that was a bad pun. Before I start to ramble on,
I'll give you my final verdict: 5 Rudii + Endzeitgeist seal of approval. These
adventures rock!
As always, thank you for reading my ramblings,
Endzeitgeist out.
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