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A Single, Small Cut
 
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Average Rating:4.2 / 5
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A Single, Small Cut
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A Single, Small Cut
Publisher: Lamentations of the Flame Princess
by Thilo G. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 01/10/2020 07:43:59

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This encounter/mini-adventure clocks in at 11 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/ToC, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 8 pages of content, laid out in 6’’ by 9’’ (A5), so let’s take a look!

This review was requested to be moved up in my reviewing queue by my patreon supporters.

The material herein is intended for six 3rd level characters, and uses the LotFP (Lamentations of the Flame Princess) rules; it can be adapted to other OSR-games with relative ease. The action is set in a remote church and its crypt, which comes with full cartography. Puzzling: The supplement is a layered pdf, but does not allow you to turn off the annoying pieces of information like “Nave”, “Narthex”, “Font” or the like – so, alas, no player-friendly version included. This is a bit puzzling, as LotFP did that in some supplements. Statblocks are made easier to see by being in boxed text, but this measure has not been consistently implemented.

All right, this is as far as I can go without diving into SPOILERS. Potential players should jump ahead to the conclusion.

… .. .

All right, only referees around? Great! So, the module begins with a pet-peeve of mine, namely that the lore of the encounter introduces a massive secret society/order, here, the Order of the Kite, a secret organization of Christianity to find and contain “Satanic” artifacts; notoriously underfunded, these individuals have now accumulated more dark artifacts than the enemy, i.e. everyone else. They proceeded to use those, in particularly the Red Bells, cut from a single garnet. One of their commanders was buried with the Red Bell beneath that church.

The inside of the church features a priest, who invites the PCs in – and PCs being careful can notice him sporting a single, small cut on his red head – a hint that he has hastily shaved his head and assumed the priest’s garments, for the “priest” is actually a wanted murderer. He and his cronies (lying in wait, with crossbows cocked) are here on the express orders of some sorcerer who learned about the bell. A single small cut (zing) from his recent shaving of a monk’s tonsure acts as a hint of danger, if the PCs have not yet been appropriately traumatized by friendly priests in The God That Crawls. While Clement “The Priest” secures the church, the sorcerer botches big time and rings the Red Bell –summoning a Corrector of Sins, the monster on the cover, which btw. has 6 attacks and 54 hit points, making it a frickin’ shredder, particularly considering LotFP’s further nerfed magic and offense capabilities of PCs!

Clement’s ambush can be devastating if the PCs fail to it, and after a few rounds, the crypt bursts open, and people stumble out – these are the survivors of the sorcerer’s retinue, and their stats are, oddly, not highlighted in the same boxes as other stats. The Corrector follows, and makes for a free-for-all, very tough battle. Correctors become more potent the more corpses are around when it’s called, so even if the PCs are victorious, a single careless moment with the Red Bell can be pretty deadly, since it’ll appear in the area with the greatest concentration of corpses – which may well be behind the PCs, potentially trapping them in the crypt.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are good, I noticed no particular accumulation of hiccups. Layout adheres to a two-column b/w-standard, and the pdf sports a lot of original b/w-artworks. The cartography is b/w as well, but no player-friendly version is provided. The pdf is layered, but only lets you turn off graphics or text – having an art/map folio would have been a better call. The pdf has no bookmarks, but needs none at this length.

I am usually a pretty big fan of Michael Curtis’ writing, but this pdf, even considering its intended, limited scope, left me less than impressed. The monster is a standard flesh-tendril-y thing, the adversaries aren’t that interesting, and it’s all combat, in a system not designed to make combat that exciting. Worse, the author actually did show that he can do a dark fantasy/horror church MUCH better: His temple in “The Croaking Fane” for DCC is superior to this module in every single way. The module’s base premise also is akin to the one employed in “The God That Crawls” and less impressive in its execution; the fact that the lore introduces yet another massive secret society is a downside as well, though at least one you can ignore with relative ease. Still, it takes up wordcount that could have been used to make the actual adventuring site sport more interactivity, which is woefully lacking. All in all, this is a combat cut-scene, with player-agenda limited beyond that to two decisions. And honestly, I think that’s lame – and puzzling, considering how the author did show how much better he can do. All in all, this might be worth getting for the low price, but I consider it to be a dud; I can improvise better scenarios. My final verdict will be 2.5 stars, rounded down.

Endzeitgeist out.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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A Single, Small Cut
Publisher: Lamentations of the Flame Princess
by Justin I. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/26/2018 15:14:26

A Single, Small Cut is an extended encounter for Lamentations of the Flame Princess written by one of my favorite adventure writers, Michael Curtis.

The encounter centers around the Order of Kites. They are a religious order of heathen slayers made up of desperate men. They fight fire with fire and confiscate tools of deviltry and paganism to slay their foes. One such tool was the Red Bell which could summon a creature dubbed the Corrector of Sins.The bell was buried with the leader of the order that used it.

At the beginning of the adventure, an enterprising wizard heard the legend of the bell, gathered ruffians, and decided to pay the Order a visit. After killing the parishioners and order, he's decided to claim the tool as his own,

This is when the party arrives. They are met by one of the bandits in disguise (who is being supported by crossbowmen in the rafters). After a social encounter (that can turn violent) the villains and pc's are confronted by the Corrector.

I want to take a second to talk about the Collector of Souls. That's him on the cover. The beast is formed from the dead bodies found with 50 feet of it. It's a shambling abomination of mangled flesh and internal organs. The description includes mention of "flailing tendrils of human intestines terminating in snapping sphincters." If you were wandering where the LotFP weirdness came in, that's it.

The party seeks out the church, encounters the rogues, encounter the Corrector, seize and learn how to use the bell (?).

Like most LotFP adventures, the adventure is nominally set on Earth. However, change the references of Satanic to diabolic and you're good. For example if I were to set this in Faerun, I think the order would be fanatics of Helm. If I put it on Oerth, they would definitely be a faction related to Pholtus.

This is a great encounter and definitely worth the two dollar price tag.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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A Single, Small Cut
Publisher: Lamentations of the Flame Princess
by A customer [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/19/2016 03:24:12

Interesting small adventure, tho most of it is easily missed by the players.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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A Single, Small Cut
Publisher: Lamentations of the Flame Princess
by Preston P. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/29/2016 22:20:33

"A Single, Small Cut" was a pretty neat mini-adventure really meant to be a small side-encounter. Be warned that this -is- very short because you're only paying two dollars for it.

That considered, the illustrations are excellent, as is the writing. While many LotFP products may have pretty questionable difficulty and obscene content (I mean that's half the fun, right?) "A Single, Small Cut" is just the right blend of challenging and is G-rated in case that matters to you. It also has a great magic item and some neat lore that'll spice up your game.

The scan is pretty clean and everything on the technical side is also good quality. 5/5



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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A Single, Small Cut
Publisher: Lamentations of the Flame Princess
by Troy V. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/20/2015 19:53:14

This is a good mini-adventure for the price. Unlike many adventures published for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess rules, I can run this with my group without driving group members away from my table at high velocity. It's what weird fantasy roleplaying was meant to be.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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A Single, Small Cut
Publisher: Lamentations of the Flame Princess
by Cedric C. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 08/28/2014 00:26:14

A Single Small Cut is a short one-session scenario in which our heroes stumble upon Something That Went Wrong. Evening's falling, the party sees a church, and they find themselves encoutering some not-good folks who are in over their heads. The scenario is perfectly fine for generic fantasy roleplaying, but lacks the trademark "torture-porn" of other Lamentation adventures. The scenario could serve as a McGuffin for your later adventures, as the party may end up aware of a magical item that needs to be dealt with. Although designed for six 3rd level characters, it can be altered for higher and possibly lower PC levels. Given the importance of the magical item, I would reserve it for at least third level. The scenario does have an interesting backstory that doesn't fall into the usual generic fantasy adventure cliches, but, like too many dungeoncrawlers, this backstory doesn't affect the gameplay.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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A Single, Small Cut
Publisher: Lamentations of the Flame Princess
by Alexander L. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 05/16/2014 07:18:02

Originally published at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2014/05/16/tabletop-review-a-single-small-cut-lamentations-of-the-flame-princess/

A Single, Small Cut is an adventure for Lamentations of the Flame Princess by author Michael Curtis, who I normally associate with Dungeon Crawl Classics. He’s written some great adventures for that system like Intrigue at the Court of Chaos, The Old Gods Return, and The Sea Queen Escapes. He’s also the author of The Chained Coffin which is currently on Kickstarter and smashing through stretch goal after stretch goal. Since I enjoy his stuff it and it’s been a while since I’ve reviewed a LotFP release, I thought I could kill two birds with one stone with this one.

A Single, Small Cut is a short little adventure than can be played in a single session. The PDF is eleven pages long, but only seven pages are the actual adventure. The other four pages are the covers, the title page and a map. The adventure is mostly text. Mechanics only show up in the form of three antagonist stat blocks and a large side bar about the adventure’s MacGuffin. This means you can easily convert A Small, Single Cut to other fantasy games if you prefer, but the flavor and atmosphere will remain LotFP style weirdness no matter what you convert it to. The adventure is designed for six Level 3 characters, but the text does say you can adjust it to higher or lower levels if needed. So all, in all, A Small, Single Cut is a pretty flexible adventure.

In many ways, A Single, Small Cut is about the hypocrisy of religion and a look at how many zealots become the very thing they hate, if not worse. In this case, we have the Order of Kites who have pledged to stamp out heathens in the name of the Church by any means necessary. The leader of this order used a small red bell to summon an extraplanar creature known as The Corrector of Sins to the world. Yes, it’s pagan magic that probably invokes a demon, but hey – there were horrible pagans to uproot and eviscerate! Upon the leader’s death, the demon summoned by his bell was no longer able to be controlled, so it was buried with their leader and left undisturbed for decades (although how did they put the Corrector back after they realized it could no longer be controlled).

This is where the adventure starts as well as where the PCs come in. A magic user and his band of rogues have discovered the whereabouts and powers of the bell and have decided to claim it for their own, not realizing it no longer functions as it did all those years ago. To get it, they are willing to murder the entire congregation of a local church. Unfortunately for everyone involved the Corrector of Sins has special abilities related to humanoid corpses and is pretty ungrateful to the band of baddies who have summoned it to this plane anew. Can the PCs stop both a cadre of mortal evil doers as well as a being beyond mortal comprehension? What ensues is a three way dance of chaos that players will be lucky to survive.

The adventure, as I have previously stated, is a short one. It can easily be played in a few hours or less. Most of the experience is combat related. You get a short set up of talking heads at the beginning of the piece (which I suppose could become extremely long and drawn out depending on the group makeup, but it is unlikely) followed by madcap violence as each of the three sides tries to do away with the other. Honestly I think there is more story in the backstory setup than the adventure itself, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. As the adventure is so short and straightforward, it can definitely be used to introduce people to the LotFP rules-set. There are several plot threads left dangling at the end of the affair thanks to the amount of back story provided. This means curious PCs and enterprising GMs can probably create a few adventures from the aftermath…if anyone survives the experience, that is. The entire affair is a lot of fun and has some definite macabre comedy moments, such as what happens when if the players find the bell.

I really enjoyed this piece. It’s definitely a weird and memorable adventure and highlights the strengths of both Curtis’ writing style as well as the old school mix of cruelty and bizarreness that is LotFP. With a price tag of only two dollars, fans of either DCC or LotFP will definitely get their money’s worth out of this purchase. Again, the adventure should be playable in an hour or three depending on the troupe’s play style (Hack and slash Vs talking heads). Whether you want to play a session but don’t have enough time or are looking for something short and sweet to showcase what LotFP is all about, A Single, Small Cut is an excellent option you should strongly consider.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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A Single, Small Cut
Publisher: Lamentations of the Flame Princess
by Rob M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/09/2014 08:14:54

A short but effective encounter, perfect for when your PCs inevitably need to get to a church for healing or curse removal.

A Single Small Cut is not so much an adventure as it is an extremely detailed description of a particularly sinister magical item and the shambling monstrosity that it summons. Simple and to the point, this will likely take an entire game session to resolve, but would require minimal prep by the Referee.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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