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Today I'm going to take a closer look at one of Frog God Games' first publications that was NOT Slumbering Tsar, but which is only slightly less epic in scope, the
Fane of the Fallen
This epic adventure is 172 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 3 pages of advertisement and 1 page back cover, leaving 164 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 of the review.
Still here? Righty right! This adventure kicks off
with a raid on the city of Brookmere, where the PCs are researching some
information or another in the city's famous library. It's said library that is
surprisingly the focus of the raid of an elite-army of goblinoids. The PCs will
try to stop the invaders and probably just fall short of stopping a mysterious
woman from stealing an obscure tome. After this raid and the excitement in the
burning (fully mapped) library has subsided, the PCs will have to bear the
white flag to the local clan of Orcs to find out whether the green-skins have
violated the treaty with Brookmere.
Once the PCs have reached the Orcs, they will have to
prove their worth by battling a zombie-dragon - after all, their insinuations
have insulted the orcish sense of honor. Once they have somehow passed the
challenge, the chieftain is willing to help them if they kill some rather
deadly troll renegades. Once these creatures, now living in an abandoned barrow,
have been cleared out, the treaty between the goblinoids and Brookmere is
considered renewed and the PCs might even score some loot - if they messed up,
war with the horde might be impending!
The trail of the attackers leads towards a small
community called Sylvanus. On the road there, the PCs will encounter a deadly
medusa's statue garden and her lair, in which the smart fighting creature will
provide for a dread challenge. At the foot of Mount Bloodstone, a commoner asks
for the PCs help as another side-trek: In order to save her daughter, the PCs
will have to scale the mountain, brave fully detailed yeti and stone giant
caves (not necessarily to fight them, btw.!) and save the girl from the Roc-mama
who has adopted the girl. Said daughter is also fond of the roc chicks and the
mother-bird, making a non-violent solution again preferable.
After these sidetreks and tribulations, the PCs will
reach Sylvanus, or rather what's left of it: The town has been deserted by all
but some huddled, frightened survivors and is now haunted by a pair of deadly
vampires. To make matters worse, the true culprits start becoming apparent:
Elves. Lilith-worshipping, demonic, fallen elves that would make drow blush not
only with modesty, but also due to their vile practices. Their extremely
beautiful, insanity-inducing fallen harpies (failed priestesses of the
succubus-queen) and a rear-guard of the invading force is still around, making
this the first encounter with this adventure's main antagonists. In order to
save the villagers and unravel the mysterious plot of the elves, the PCs will
have to track them into primal and eerie Harwood Forest.
Once in the depths of the forest, they will encounter
a vast array of villagers and foes, turned to wood by a xenophobic druid and
his wood-elemental Gertrude. In order to reverse the transformation of these
innocents, the PCs must successfully scale the Druid's Tree lair and deal with
his challenges, convince him to let the villagers go...only to find out that
the artifact he could use to revert the transformation has run out of juice.
Only one could help: BABA YAGA.
Yep. The Crone is in here. With full stats. CR 29.
Don't screw with her or her artifacts. The presentation of her hut, though
slightly less compelling than in "Tales of the Old Margreve", is
AWESOME. In order to coax the necessary information from her, the PCs will have
to hitch a ride with Charon in the Land of the Dead. To Circe's Island. To
steal an egg from a phoenix and make the noble creature cry. Twisted, iconic,
stellar...and potentially an aspect the PCs could skip all together. Just like
a sojourn into a cursed barrow, where an entombed lich awaits. As soon as the
crone has been satisfied a race against time begins: Lilith's chosen Medb, a
succubus of extreme power confined to an artifact axe of the vilest power is
the fallen elves' true goal - the villagers will be sacrificed according to a
rite in the book stolen from the Brookmere-library. Thankfully, the axe is
still confined in the temple inside the meteor-crater of Tunguska. After
exploring the now-corrupted and extremely well-secured temple, an elite-squad
of fallen elves will try to wrest the axe from the PCs - hopefully in vain.
Only one thing left to do: After saving a paladin in a
sacrificial ceremony, the PCs will have to jump into the dragon's maw: In order
to stop the machinations of the Fallen Elves, the PCs not only have to
infiltrate their hidden city of Nowgorod, they will also have to get into the
castle, eliminate the vile race's leaders and save a whole village from the
depths of a multi-level castle that constitutes the power-base of the whole
nation of vile, decadent demon-worshipping elves. Inside await a vast majority
of high-level NPCs, arch-wizards, golems and soldiers - of all the high-level
modules, the castle possibly makes for one of the deadliest challenges I've
read for PFRPG. I only have one minor gripe in this section: While the castle
is highly detailed and includes information on alert-responses etc., I found
the lack of details and handwaving of the infiltration of the city unfortunate:
With all the exquisitely-detailed side-treks, I couldn't help but feel like one
side-trek less and more information on city Nowgorod and its customs would have
improved the central story-line of the adventure. The queen, perhaps a legendary
succubus-champion, several CR 16+ wizards and a whole city of fallen
elves...and then there's the potential problem of escorting a whole village of
prisoners out of the succubus-like elves' corrupt town.
The pdf also contains appendices with wandering
monster tables, compiled stats of fallen elf strike squads (very useful for
these complex high-level encounters), new monsters, new magic items,4 player's
handouts.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are excellent: I only noticed 3
glitches on this many pages and all were minor punctuation errors. Layout
adheres to an elegant 2-column standard and the b/w-artworks ROCK. There are a
lot of them, too and we get maps for even the tiniest side-trek. Awesome! Even
better, the city-maps are player-friendly and don't include annoying numbers. One
downside of the book is quite eminent: I'm glad I managed to get a dead-tree
version - the pdf doesn't have bookmarks. At 164 pages, bookmarks are a
NECESSITY, not an option. The lack of bookmarks forces you to print out the
adventure, in spite of the compiled stats of the elite enemies, to have any
chance of running it efficiently. On the fluff-side, "Fane of the
Fallen" is on the one hand pervaded with stellar old-world fluff and a
true sense of epicness. On the other hand, several of the side-treks cut be
skipped by the PCs and the central plotline has a minor weak spot near the end.
And then there's the lack of bookmarks in the pdf-version, which at this
length, is unacceptable. Content-wise, I'd settle for a 5-star Rudii, but the
lack of bookmarks and story-hick-up instead make me settle for a 4-Rudii-verdict
along a recommendation for everyone who's looking for an epic, old-school
challenge.
All right, that's it for now, as always, thank you for reading my ramblings,
Endzeitgeist out.
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