This pdf is 28 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 2 pages SRD, leaving 23 pages of content, so let's check this out!
This is an adventure-review and thus, SPOILERS abound- Potential players might wish to jump to the conclusion.
Still here? All right! After returning from their stay with the Ulnat in the Far North, the PCs are back in the lands that are more reminiscent of Scandinavia during the time of Vikings. To weather the winter, the PCs have been invited to stay at the hall of Jarl Arnuld Cursespear, who once slew the legendary reaver and direct descendant of Odin, the blight upon the world called Sven Oakenfist. Unfortunately, he came to his success and riches by the death-curse of said hero and now, as an old man, the wight of the legend returns and barges into the hall of the Jarl to pronounce a final deadline - on the Feast of Freyja, Sven will kill and destroy everything and everyone who swears fealty to Jarl Arnuld. In order to vanquish the wight, the PCs will have to find a way to unravel his mighty death-curse.
Unfortunately, with essentially a divine bloodline, said death-curse will prove to be rather difficult to find even a HINT to unravel. Thankfully, the three utterly mad daughters of one of the norns might provide the answers - if the PCs manage to best their trials. From defeating a unique dragon to save a beautiful maid, to doing (rather dangerous)chores for a matronly lady and defeating an evil crone in a game (when she's cheating, nonetheless!), the trials are worthy of the legendary daughters - hopefully the PCs don't think they can best the mad demi-goddesses in battle...
If they play along with their mad delusions, they are rewarded with cryptic clues that add up to provide the information to kill the legendary wight - each successful trial also decreases the power of the final boss, unraveling some part of his wyrd, thus providing more than one way of finishing this adventure and rewarding PCs who manage to succeed in all tasks. The final showdown in Sven's cairn sees a furious finale, including a potentially fatal collapse and the heroes receive treasures befitting their actions during the adventure.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a b/w-2-column standard and some pieces of neat original b/w-artworks are provided. The pdf comes with extensive nested bookmarks. Where the first two adventures felt more like journeys to the Inuit-myths, this one is a straight Viking-adventure that could have indeed been one of the early sagas - the iconic trials, the theme of moral ambiguity and keeping your word, the theme of destiny and its threads - this adventure GETS the themes and delivers them in a concise, awesome way while providing some truly iconic scenes that feel slightly larger-than-life without breaking the suspense-of-disbelief of even a low-magic campaign. Thus, my final verdict for this stellar module will be 5 stars plus the Endzeitgeist seal of approval.
Endzeitgeist out.
Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!] |