The writing in this book is, without a doubt, 5/5, but this exact edition of two brilliant adventures suffers from broken page navigation – for example, the Stonespear Province map (to those who have not read it yet, it's one of the two most important maps of the second part of the book) labeled with page numbers from the original "Odious Uplands" book. C'mon, guys, make a round of proofreading before more people like me would get it in print with such obvious mistakes.

Brilliant, mad, hilarious stuff. The writing is engaging, the artwork totally in keeping with the setting and adventures to be had.

A great, 5-star adventure with some frustrating editing errors from the conversion to DCC that I feel obligated to call out. 3 or 4 of the starting magic items, which are a big part of the adventure, simply don't have descriptions for what they do and are. At first I thought this might be a reference to another book--maybe the descriptions were in the DCC core rules? But finding a copy of the original release, the items are fully described: a 'Force Wand' is just a wand of magic missiles (with counts for the number of missiles and their damage), a Tincture Obscurus is a potion of invisibility, the DCC version gives you 20 'Prismatic Arrows' with no indication what they do or what's prismatic about them, the S&W version makes them +1 arrows. What prompted me to post this review is it just happened again: I was reading an area description and suddenly there's a stat block for a suit of magical scale mail. No indication why there's armor, where it's found, what the context is. In the S&W version it's described that there's the corpse of an adventurer buried in rubble. It just seems to be an error in editing. It's gotten to the point where if I find something confusing or that seems under-described I open my pdf of the old version to see if it's there. There are similar issues where the conversion just feels kind of half-baked: the Battle-Axe of Spell Cleaving gets a weird mechanic where it gives you a deed die that lets you chop spells, but that doesn't really make mechanical sense, and just feels like making something DCC (A deed die!) without actually engaging with how deed dies work. Along those lines the text has you running OU as a funnel (DCC!) but I'm not sure I agree, but doesn't give you advice about the things you'd naturally wonder about: when do you level to 1, how do you deal with stuff like wizards getting their spellbook or clerics selecting a god mid-dungeon. Obviously a good DM can figure this out for themselves, but as a new Judge I would've really appreciated the advice, and I'm not 100% sure this was playtested (maybe that's unfair). All that being said it's a great adventure, but I did find the conversion frustrating and I wanted to give a heads-up to anyone else buying this and I'm gonna post the original S&W starting item list because this was the real sticking point for me: Sword of Demolition +1: can be set to self-destruct upon command, begins to count backward from 30 in a calm female voice, explodes at zero for 6d6 damage to all within 60’ (see p. 95) 20 arrows +1 One arrow +2: prismatic effect (as per faerie fire) on any creature struck 6 healing salves: restore 1d4+1 HP per application 1 potion of invisibility Ancient charms vs. Chaos: functions as protection from evil, magic depleted after 1d4 days; provided for each PC Stone Cloaks: provides camouflage (+1 to any checks); provided for each PC (see p. 95) Wand of magic missiles: fires 2 magic missiles per charge, 5 charges Battle Axe of Spell Cleaving +1: chop an emergent spell from the air; renders effects null and void (but destroys the weapon) (see p. 93) Scroll with fireball, charm monster, membranous inconvenience (see p. 97) One dozen each red and blue anti-Chaos pills, to be consumed when directly exposed to raw Chaos or Chaos derived phenomena (see p. 93)

edit: I'm still finding weird editing errors like this--Membranous Inconvenience describes a spell as letting the 'caster and their allies' hack free of the spell when they mean the 'target and their allies', and the spell suggests you can get a Reflex save to avoid the spell, but then doesn't explain what the DC is or when it applies. There's a reference to "See the new language table in the Operation Unfathomable Player’s Guide, DCC RPG Edition". But there is no new language table.

Again, great adventure at its core, but the more I run this the more weird errors and clumsy conversions I find, it's a bummer.

Amazingly creative, thorough, and well written. The art is amazing and the entire package is non-stop gaming inspiration.

I LOVE THIS! This is the gonzo, awesome, underdark that I come to expect from the people at Goodman Games YET IT'S NOT! Good on Hydra Cooperative, Jason Sholtis and Paul Wolfe. It is what is described in the description and then some. Very cool NPCS, awesome backstories, gonzo creatures, crazy plot twists and turns and everything needed to run a DCC campaign in a subterranean environment with a BONUS of the Odious Uplands...whoo boy! I give this 5 out of 5 stars. This is more than an adventure this is a campaign in a book. Just get this and add it to your DCC adventures you will not be disappointed unless you're not into gonzo, crazy, off the wall, weird fantasy. This is not D&D THIS IS DCC!!!!!

I've run this scenario about half a dozen times at conventions using the OSE ruleset. It's always a blast to see new players (new to old school game designs) figure this one out.

No wonder that this adventure put Zedeck Siew on the indy RPG map. It's so good.

A great non-Western, native take on southeast Asian folklore and fantasy in an easy-to-understand and flavorful package. He imparts so much of the culture and the vibe through simple tables and descriptions, without ever needing to go on a lengthy diatribe.

The bachelor is such a great villain, divided against himself, striving for godhood, physically and metaphysically tied to the land. Mythic. Yet still approachable for adventurers.

Note that this is a sandbox, not an adventure path. There's no linear path for the game to follow. It's an exciting and tense powderkeg for the players to light fire to however they want. Siew gives a few suggestions for directions the PCs may wish to go at the end, but the choice is theirs.

Great module with very atmospheric setting and a lot of good OSR-style leasons. I ran it with Adventurous, which only required minimal conversion work.

Full disclosure here, I have picked up the download on the PDP sites. Originally looking at the labyrinth, Lord addition, and eventually being able to get the DCC conversion. That's typical with such things, are you to keep download or delete it. If it's a keeper, I also end up buying a physical property. This is an amazing book. There is so much awesome freshness in Jason Sholtis' side of Jason of the Under dark. The uniclops is one of my new favourite creatures. The idea that the PCs enter the ender dark route around for a while and then end up coming out in the land of 10,000 years ago… What an amazing twist that's going to be for the players when they reach the surface again. Definitely two minor quibbles… The promise of alternate covers, of which I've seen glimpses of online… We're not available, and I just couldn't wait, so I ordered the book already. (a nice idea would be to offer PDF so we can print out our own dust jackets when these covers become available, for those who ordered ahead of time and supported you from the beginning) And that the free add-ons, meaning, the character sheets, and such, have not been converted to DCC stats yet. But hey, those are freebies… This is an amazing book, you really wouldn't go wrong, picking it up

This book works just as well as bedside reading as it does as an RPG resource. So much goodness!

My only complaint is that it's often difficult to know where to look for a given situation since all the chapter headers are more clever than descriptive.

Great book to have at your table!

This is the extensive long campaign format adventure this Judge has been looking for! Suits the DCC game to a Tee. All converted to DCC, including patrons, spells unique monsters and magic items.

It has the crazed weirdness that we all crave, but also, suprisingly a lot of character pathos. The above world setting and below world dungeon is a fine place to cast your players to the inevitable unspeakable corruption.

10/10 spellburn. Would Invoke Patron again..

I got turned off of this book pretty early on. I realize that some portion of this might fall into "get over it" territory, but I couldn't help but feel that plenty of the problematic racism of the Weird Tales era was present in these books, given just a bit of a new coat of paint, but not in a way that tore it down or engaged with it seriously. For example, the slave trade in the New World was actually begun by (basically) now-vanished Atlanteans, not the European analogues. (The white folk still discriminate against "The Black Folk" as they're called, though. And they come from Ebon-Land.) The mystical Chinese stand-ins look like anybody else — but their dread rulers are in fact lemon or saffron skinned.

Lots of this text could probably be entirely replaced to get rid of the parallels with 1930s racism, and the setting would remain coherent. It wasn't, though.

Very cool and imaginative RPG product right here but it's far from your typical bog standard, vanilla D&D type fare. That's the crux of why I bought it though. I was looking for something on the weirder side for a change. I don't mind vanilla. I don't mind standard but in this case I was looking for something different and it delivers. I'm not sure if I would ever use this as is. It might be a little too weird for my tastes but at the very least it's a fun read. It also plants many seeds in the brain as you go through it. That's a sign of a very good RPG adventure/supplement (well it is for me anyway)

I rated it at 4 stars. I would have gone 4.5 but drivethru doesn't allow you to do that. Oh well. I'll keep my eyes peeled for future products from this publisher.

Overall I like the idea of this adventure and even like the potential endings but in preparing to run this as a one-shot I have found more than a few issues with the PDF.

1. There is a list of all 30 calamities that will occur on a summary page, but the order of the list is not in the order they appear if you follow the daily summaries, making that page kind of useless.
2. There is inconsistent language used, for example one of the characters is sometimes refered to as the "Town fool" but other times as the "Town Uncle"
3. Each of the 30 key characters has a page or more describing them but instead of having bullet point style information, it's formatted into narrative stories that you will need to read and summarize to get anything useful out of
4. Notice that it says each of the 30 key characters? That's important because each character actually has a bunch of related characters who aren't considered key so they don't have any info on them but also more importantly they don't appear on the player handout. This is actually kind of important because the players would then know it can't be the Mayor's husband since he is not on the handout etc. Since I can't predict who my players might suspect, it kind of makes that handout pointless.

So although I like the idea, and it has some nice attempts at summary pages to organize things, I think if you try to actually run this, you'll realize there is quite a bit of work you will need to do up front to untangle what is and isn't usable.

I ran this as the first adventure site for a new 5e campaign I'm running. I'm trying to move a few steps from the current 5e zeitgeist to a more classical style of play with things like 1) resource tracking, and 2) no darkvision. Hated Pretender was the perfect scenario to introduce "old-school" concepts to my players.

It was 180 degrees from what they are used to. No Investigation or Perception rolls. No set-pieces or balanced encounters. They puzzled out the dungeon with experimentation and their wits. I nerfed the phantasms pretty significantly but they still ran away screaming and elected to try exploring again at night.

They managed to trigger both traps in the lower level, resulting in a PC going unconscious. I know in true classical play she would be dead but still, I think the party learned an important lesson.

Overall, hated Pretender has been one of my favorite scenarios I've run in my brief 3-year DM career. It threw the players for a loop but they adjusted quickly. It is also very evocative and can be used to drop hints about the wider world and really create a sense of mystery for the players. 5/5 would run again and again.

I also ran Winter's Daughter around the same time for another group and the effect was similar - they learned a few principles of classic-style play, adjusted quickly and had a blast. I know Winter's Daughter is highly praised for that aspect and I think Hated Pretender is its equal. I prefer the aesthetic of Hated Pretender.