An Endzeitgeist.com review

This module clocks in at 68 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 2 pages of quote/preface, 1 page ToC, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 62 pages of content, laid out in the usual 6’’ by 9’’(A5) booklet-format, so let’s take a look!

This review was requested by one of my patreon supporters. The review is based on both the hardcover and the pdf.

Before you read this review, please be aware that I assume familiarity with Better Than Any Man, or at least, with my review of the module herein.

Okay, if the strategically-placed pens on my hardcover’s copy are no indicator – this module is abbreviated NSFW. If you read this review on a work computer, don’t click on the links to the uncensored version. The module itself contains drawn nudity, as well as excessive gore and twisted imagery – if you’re easily offended, then this may not be the module for you. The module is VERY deadly, and can end campaigns/irrevocably change them. It can be completed in a single convention slot.

Formally, the book uses LotFP (Lamentations of the Flame Princess) as the OSR-rules employed; NPC/monster stats are printed in red, making them easy to parse. Magic items and spell-references are properly formatted, but it should be noted that spellcasters don’t get a list of spells known per se. A lot of the book’s pages (13 of them) are devoted to the Tract of Teratology, a book with which you can conjure grotesque monstrosities if you’re willing to sacrifice people to do so. These bestow abilities on caster and monster, but in a cool twist, the monsters generally suffer from compulsions and strange restrictions – it’s almost like a small brother to the Random Esoteric Creature Generator, and it does its job pretty well, but I couldn’t help but feel like its presence here was not required – having it elaborated into a full-blown book of its own, and using the page-count in a different way would have probably been better.

The theme of this module, as the introduction notes, is “glibdark” – in short, much like some exploitation flicks, it exaggerates dark themes and taboos to the point where they can become almost funny…but the module is more, at least in my opinion. Still, this “glibdark” aspect bears mentioning: The module, intended for low to mid-level characters (no level range is given) is almost gleeful in its sometimes rather gross descriptions, so whether or not your group can enjoy the like is an important factor to determine whether you’ll like this book.

There is another factor. You see, I can summarize this book in one sentence: “Better Than Any Man, Convention Edition – or Better Than Any Man, the Satirical Meta-Commentary Module.” In a way, this module is the more successful of the LotFP-modules that can be read as meta-commentary on the reception of Better Than Any Man, the other being Fuck For Satan.

But in order to elaborate, I need to go into SPOILERS. Potential players should jump ahead to the conclusion.

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All right, only referees around? Great! So, please stop me if this sounds familiar: A coven of ladies with witch-like powers has established a place and try to live according to their remarkably progressive ideals. The ladies have unique abilities, and one of them has more powers than the others. Yeah, well, what was one of the factors in Better Than Any Man takes central focus here: The PCs are basically trapped in a huge dome of magical energy that includes two settlements and a priory. The priory is the center of the ritual currently happening, and it can only be accessed by finding some red spheres – all of this is illustrated in pretty neat isometric full-color cartography…which is missing a scale. Super-weird: In spite of the pdf being layered, the maps can’t be made player-friendly – the annoying labels remain. Boo!!

But I digress. The 5 women standing with the main antagonist Orelia Woolcott have taken the names of mythological figures, for they want to enact a dancing ritual to change the world! Orelia has managed to contact a per se benevolent entity called “Primogenitor” – this thing badly understands our primitive world from its multi-dimensional perspective, and thus has a hard time actually doing what the ladies intend it to. Still, the ritual in progress, unless stopped, will destroy the (VERY) unpleasant social order of the 1620s, yearning for ideals that ring as sound to most modern people.

However, in that world and age? With the primogenitor? The consequences will be vast and cataclysmic…but they still may be worth it. The ladies are not classic villains. Nor are the PCs classic heroes. Which brings me back to Better Than Any Man’s reception: That module may be one of the best PWYW-modules I’ve ever run, it may be one of the best adventures in LotFP’s entire library. It was also denounced as a wide variety of things, by people offended by an optional humiliation/BDSM-ish reference, by its dark horror-themes, by not getting the usual adventuring experience. By getting a module that is dark fantasy, and can turn full-blown horror after the PCs ignore LITERALLY their deity warning them away. BTAM was maligned for being too deadly (and yes, it is lethal), for being capricious, and Fuck For Satan took all of these issues and made a review from them. It was a tantrum and a middle finger.

This adventure does something smarter: It makes the reception of Better Than Any Man, the mischaracterizations, exaggerations, rumor-mongering and deliberate misreadings, and wrote them down. Then, the author constructed a satirical module that can be fun, in spite of all these things, well, being deliberately showcased here.

If you think I’m reading too much into this, let me give you a couple of examples.

-There is a village where everyone was slaughtered – a little girl can turn herself inside-out (dragging her e.g. leg through her moth) and turn into a killer creature, which must be dealt with.

-There are PLENTY of cataclysmic ways for your campaign to go off the deep end. One optional encounter has a slime that can cause an ice age. Looking into a peeping hole can end the world/launch a horrible invasion, or have a character die horribly, seemingly vanishing into thin air. All of these campaign-enders are telegraphed in some way, though – the holes? “GAZE NOT” is written above them. The slime? Can be dealt with/is triggered by the PCs.

-The lethality is represented in the finale as well: Rocks literally fall, and PCs have the chance to lose limbs on failed saves.

-There is a couple of a man and woman who hate each other, fused together.

-There is LITERALLY a psychotic white knight who wants to kill the PCs if they try to interfere.

-There are nuns giving birth to abominations.

-There is a perverted abbot, who has a mini-harem of ladies LITERALLY commoditized by the weird magics – one of the ladies has a frickin’ cornucopia-like torso, and their limbs have been somewhat switched around. They are grotesque, yet helpful and happy with their lot.

There is NO WAY this is not intentional.

It is the module-version of whacking somebody on the head with a newspaper while yelling “DO YOU GET IT NOW???” Heck, the module actually spells out that Woolcott’s New World Order actually would be GOOD for the PCs. You know, as good as a certain social experiment near Würzburg, destined to be swept away by Carolus Rex, could have been.

This module’s subtext removes all ambiguity; I’d not even call it “subtext” – it’s text. It’s so ridiculous and excessive with its gore and grotesque components, with its OBVIOUS quoting of pretty much everything related to exploitation themes, that it’s very, very hard to play this seriously. It’s possible, but leaning into the grotesque and outrageous is probably the better call.

And yet, the adventure is not per se preachy. You can play it without all of these considerations, and since the ritual’s under a strict timer, gathering the red spheres, entering the priory, and stopping or not stopping the ritual can be covered, easily, within a convention slot or single (long) play-session.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I noticed no hiccups on a formal or rules-language level. Layout adheres to a two-column standard, and the module provides plenty of grotesque and gory full-color artworks of excellent quality. The isometric full-color cartography is beautiful, but I’d rather have USEFUL cartography. No scales on the maps, no grids, and worse, the maps feature spoilers. The items required to enter the final area of the module actually are visible on the maps. This is particularly jarring in the pdf-version, where the existence of layered pdfs literally means that there’s no excuse for not being able to turn these off. The hardcover sports “NSFW” on the spine, is solid and high-quality – no complaints there. The pdf doesn’t fare as well, unfortunately: The pdf has this weird phenomenon, where the crisp and perfectly clear artworks of the hardcover book seem more low-res and pixilated, have less crisper colors, etc., and the module lacks bookmarks in its electronic version, which makes navigation a pain in the behind.

I like Rafael Chandler’s death/black-metal infused aesthetic, with its pitch-black humor, and this book puts this humor front and center. This can be played as a funhouse parade of grotesqueries, and even without knowing about all the online drama, it is a fun and functional module. It is super-deadly, but it, unlike Fuck For Satan, is not a deliberate screwjob (haha – sorry for the atrocious punnery) – underlying its lethality is a very deliberate “reap what you have sown”-mentality. The PCs will only suffer if the players aren’t smart. This is brutal, but it is no exercise in “Got Ya”-BS – it is fair in its savagery.

Where Better Than Any Man was a relentlessly dark and merciless vision, this is its funnier, goofier brother, is the equivalent of laughing in a slasher-flick. Now, personally, I preferred the other take on the concepts, but No Salvation for Witches does have its place beyond its meta-commentary aspects.

For a campaign starter, for a convention game with the right audience? This can be genuinely funny. “Right audience” being the big factor here.

If you’re easily offended, then this will trigger you to kingdom come, and same goes if you just want your standard fantasy.

But that’s not what LotFP is about. This is one of the few instances, where I’d consider grotesque horror and humor to make for a valid combination.

So, all well? No. The maps prioritizing beauty over utility bother me to no end. No bookmarks? Similarly sucky. And while the Tract of Teratology is a nice tool, it feels pretty useless here – I’d rather have had more module. That being said, unlike Fuck For Satan, this is no somewhat puerile temper-tantrum in module-form; this is, in design and themes, an elegant rebuttal that can be fun to play. It’s not Rafael Chandler’s best work, but it’s a nice module. My final verdict will be 4 stars – for the print version. For the pdf-version, you should think about how important the aforementioned issues are to you, and detract the appropriate number of stars. Personally, I’d rate the pdf on its own at 3 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.

Outstanding writing. Very creative adventure design. The module does a great job of capturing both an overall period and a fully-realized setting. The content is disturbing, as advertised, but not gratuitously so. More in service of the story and the alien nature of the adversaries. This adventure could be difficult to drop into an existing campaign as-is, given the two potential world-altering consequences. But the author leaves this largely in the hands of the DM, meaning both are reversible and scaleable, as needed. Recommended for those whose players can stomach the nasty bits.

Like most LotFP modules, NSFW isn't a carefully plotted adventure ("this happens, then this happens, then this...") Instead, it sets up a situation, provides a bunch of NPCs and monsters, and then leaves it up to the referee and PCs to wreak havoc. Personally I like this sort of setup, but it does require more work on the part of the referee, so be warned.

Also like most LotFP modules, this one has a really cool concept at the heart of it. Adventures where PCs try to stop a villain from gaining ultimate power are a dime a dozen--but what if the person isn't a villain? What if they genuinely want to fix the world, and might be able to? This is the moral conundrum at the heart of the module.

Of course, there are also lots of horrible monsters, nifty but potentially lethal magic items, and gorey deaths, as one would expect.

Highly recommended for experienced referees.

In the typical LotFP fashion, the "winning" scenario is damn near impossible, the adventure contains numerous devices which screw player characters royally, and is grimdark to a fault, replacing wit and imagination with tragedy and cruel jokes. Your characters might as well just stay in the tavern, tea house, inn, or drug den. Better yet, tell your referee to lighten up or replace your referee, and stop pulling these tasteless, depressing pranks on you and the rest of the players.

I picked up this Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventure based partly on the name (how could I refuse? I also bought it because I am a fan of Rafael Chandler and his Teratic Tome. While this adventure uses the LotFP rules, it can be easily adapted to just about any OSR/Old School game. It is also set in James Raggi's pseudo European setting which also makes it easy to convert to just about anything if you don't mind ignoring some of the history presented. As the title implies, NSFW is not for everyone. It is no worse or no better in terms of art than anything else in the Lamentations catalog or TT. I will give Raggi credit, he springs for some quality art.
The adventure itself is weird, bloody and full of body horror. It is also a race against the clock. IF you go with the idea that Woolcott is a witch (and not a LotFP magic-user) and evil then the PCs have something to work for. Otherwise I can't see how the world they create in the end is all that bad? I am kidding, a little. For me I think it would be interesting that if in their goodwill to recreate a better world they made it more horrible. The adventure is a combination of Eurotrash occult horror, Lovecraftian style outsiders and creepy history. There is also a splash of 80s slasher flick in this. It is a heady brew of horror tropes in the guise of an adventure. The Tract of Teratology featured in this adventure is almost worth the cover price. The listed monsters are also really cool and unique. It can be hard to judge power level of this adventure. But I am going to say high level at least. The book is 68 pages with covers, maps and OGL. It is also full color.

Its Friday the Thirteenth and I couldn't have picked a better adventure/source book to take a look at then this one. I'm late to the party on this Lamentations of The Flame Princess adventure. And once again I'm late to the party and asking myself why I didn't get in on the action from the beginning? No more holding back folks, I haven't devoted nearly enough time to looking into some of the 'E ticket' rides of the OSR. In this case its The Lamentations Of The Flame Princess's Rpg System ' No Salvation For Witches' adventure. I've been a bit conflicted about this adventure and not because of the 'Mature Content' but because of the background, and setting research I've done. I read through review after review of it and several interviews of Rafael Chandler and James Raggi's on various rpg outlet sights and various internet what not outlets for marketing the game adventure. And the successful Indie Go Go campaign that the Lamentations line has run for 'No Salvation For Witches' adventure. And no its not the MATURE CONTENT that isn't for little kids or the easily offended or the occult powers that the adventure depicts. No, I want to do the damn adventure justice,because its very,very, well done and one of the best things that Lamentations has done to date. 'No Salvation For Witches' takes place in the world and setting of Lamentations Of The Flame Princess rpg's pseudo European London of the early 1620's and the middle of the Price Revolution. You can find out more about that right HERE . The whole adventure is a giant back handed sandbox mini campaign of horror and depravity. Your going to need the right group of players because their going to come into a situation that reminds me of a X ticket Hammer horror fest and something akin to a punch to the gut via a splatterpunk historic adventure with lots of twists and turns.

I've seen this adventure compared with 'Better Then Any Man'; and no this isn't anything like the 'Better Then Any Man' adventure. That's one thing that folks have to understand about the Lamentations line of rpg products. They're all stand alone adventures and have to be taken on their own merits and this was done on purpose. There isn't an over arching meta plot to them except in the fact that Raggi has used his lady adventurers and signature characters as cover connectors for the various products of the line. If you the DM want to connect these products together,well really that's your business. And that brings us right back into the witch coven that centers in London and the deal of the century that they've cut with a really,really alien life form. Rafael Chandler brings his NPC's to life with a flourish and grand gesture or two that gives these poor fools depth but there is an edge of evil here to the situation because once your party is in the middle of this sandbox adventure then all bets are off. No Salvation For Witches handles the gore and nastiness with the hand of an 80's Italian horror flick spun through the lens of Lovecraft and poured onto a steaming pile of 1600's European darkness. This is the sort of adventure that Ravenloft kinda hinted about and never dared do. Look this is the type of adventure that would be directed by Dario Argento and starring your PC's if he was using a Robert Howard Solomon Kane story as the basis. In other words this isn't an adventure to get too attached to your PC's.They may die rather well and truly in a way that you wouldn't want them to be resurrected. Seriously because that alien god thing at the heart of this adventure is polluting everything in the backdrop of it. And its still out there and dangerous, as well as incredibly weirdly dangerous. But it also doesn't quite understand human beings and its powering the heart and soul of this adventure. That's one of the things about Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventures unique in a sense. Yes there's a greater whole to the sandbox but it doesn't touch any other adventure unless you want it too as a part of your campaign. The locations within the adventure were best summed up by the author in a recent interview in Diehard GamFAN - 'Rafael: This is an open world exploration, but there are certain constraints; the players will be able to explore the setting, which includes moors, villages, and a derelict priory. In addition, there’s a bit of a dungeon, but it’s quite small, and really, it’s very safe. Be sure to go there.' And its all tailored around the twisted heart and soul of the No Salvation For Witches adventure setting! But wait there's still more. Within the adventure is a mini source book of demonology and family fun (kidding unless your family happens to be a demon lord & co.) The “The Tract of Teratology” is worth the price of admission alone. The thing is a demon and Lovecraftian generator that gives incredibly weird and highly dangerous insane Lovecraftian horrors as prize winning monsters. Once again I reference The Diehard GameFan interview with Rafeal Chandler and James Raggi - 'DHGF: The Tract of Teratology, a key component to the adventure, is supposed to be able to generate roughly 3.6 TRILLION different monsters according to the campaign page. Can you give us any examples of the fiendish thingies that can be born from this thing? Rafael: Of course! “Cube-shaped body with transparent skin showing the internal organs; cold to the touch. Appendages: Glistening trench full of delicate bulbs of tissue. Scent of honeysuckle. Neutral: Acts in its own interests; bears the caster no ill will, but is not favorably disposed towards him either. If the caster makes good fodder for satisfying the entity’s Compulsion, so be it. 15 hit points. Armor class 14. 2 attacks for 1d4 damage. Movement 60′. Morale 10. Knows 1 randomly-selected 3rd level Magic-User spell. Attacks at +3. Compulsion: To consume some of the flesh of those who have fornicated recently. After 2 days, the monster vanishes silently.” " And you get this sort of thing in spades which is perfect for adding into not only a Lamentations of The Flame Princess campaign but any old school retroclone system that needs that extra demonic kick in the teeth! The rituals and rites for summoning these horrors from beyond the pale is horrid, nasty, and downright murderous in the highest degree! This isn't stuff that you simply add to a game. Reading through this stuff was like watching Ken Russell's Devils film from 1971. You get uncomfortable and squirm in your seat but you come away feeling that you can actually use this material. This is after all an old school horror adventure and one done in the vein of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess line and venue. Is it worth the price of admission? Yes and then some the artwork is top notch, the text and flavor of the adventure is up to the caliber that I'd expect from the Lamentations line of product. Grab it and I so want this in print yesterday.

Originally posted on: http://diehardgamefan.com/2014/09/05/tabletop-review-no-salvation-for-witches-lamentations-of-the-flame-princess/

Back in August, Lamentations of the Flame Princess ran an IndieGoGo campaign for an adventure entitled, No Salvation for Witches. You might have seen an interview I did with James Edward Raggi IV and Rafael Chandler about it. The campaign ended on August 25th and ended up raising 8,328 Euros. With 665 backers (so close, I know!) that meant the average was 12,52€ per book. That’s a pretty great when you realize that the project was a “Pay What You Want Campaign,” meaning you could get the book for a single Euro if that is all you wanted to throw the company’s way. Well, the PDF is now out and I’ve been sent a review copy to add to my ever growing horde of digital LOTfP adventures. I have to say I enjoyed NSFW a lot – moreso than Thulian Echoes, but not quite as much as other 2014 LOTfP releases like Scenic Dunnsmouth or The Doom Cave of Crystal Headed Children, but it’s still a fantastic adventure sure to delight longtime fans of Lamentations of the Flame Princess

The adventure’s acronym is NSFW and it’s very fitting. Right off the bat the cover had a naked levitating lady (Okay, she has a sash, but all the naughty bits are visible, which is why this review isn’t show the naughtiest art. It was that or putting the piece behind an age gate. We have so many young Pokémon oriented children that read our site after all). The artwork is fantastic, but there’s a lot of gore and genitals in it, so obviously, this is not the gaming piece you give to seven year old Billy (Or Jack Chick) and say, “This is what tabletop gaming is all about little dude!” As well, the adventure is a very open ended one meaning a DM will have to fill in a lot of blanks, take detailed notes and pay close attention to where everything is in this adventure, but also adhere so some sort of internal clock as the adventure must be finished in twenty-four hours (game time, not real time). The preface does warn you that this is far from a low prep adventure so like small impressionable single digit aged children, No Salvation For Witches should not be someone’s first ever adventure to run as they will most likely be in over their head, disappoint their players and feel a bit down in the dumps for a slight period thereafter. NSFW takes a decent amount of work to make it work right, much less as the author intended, so you might want to pick up the adventure to read several times over before you even think about running it. Sure, the complicated nature of the adventure means only a small percentage of gamers will appreciate this, and even less will run it, but those that do manage to pull of NSFW, which find it a very memorable adventure, even if all their characters die horribly (which is like because hey, LotFP!). So what is No Salvation for Witches about? Well, it’s about a well-meaning motley crew of women trying to enact social justice in 1620s England due to the Price Revolution where hyperinflation and population booms decimated the pocketbooks of the lower and middle class. What, you didn’t study about this in High School or College? Shame on you. Anyway, this coven of women take over a priory and enact a magical ritual meant to make the world a better place. In doing so she has made contact with…something alien and unfathomable that is enhancing the coven’s power and making changes to the local landscape (and lifeforms) happen. Of course, this creature being so alien that that descriptor does not do it justice is not a native English speaker and so something gets lost in the translation. Doubly so because humanity does not make all that much sense to this life form. So good intentions but LotFP equals all sorts of crazy crap that will no doubt pose a threat to the PCs in the adventure, primarily in regard to shortening their lifespans.

The adventure is very much an open-ended sandbox. The only restriction is that once players enter the sphere in which all this organized chaos is occurring, they will be unable to leave. So they can’t just flee to France after being nearly nibbled to death by a school of undead fish. As well you do have the time constraint to keep track, but players will be unaware of this fact and it won’t hinder their exploration of the area. Really most of the adventure once you have entered the sphere is simply exploration and figuring out what gruesome threat to life and limb awaits you in this neck of the woods. In some ways the adventure is a more people friendly Tomb of Horrors because death is everywhere, but it’s also quite social and willing to have a nice talk with you, make you a cup of tea or offer to go on a woodland walk before massacring you. At least when you die in NSFW you can say the unspeakable monstrosities than butchered you were more polite than most.

For most of the adventure you’ll be trying to find your way into the abbey without being replaced by a psychotic clone of yourself than erupts from your skin. This involves finding three McGuffin spheres that are in locations offering challenge and disembowelment. This is pretty pat and almost generic in concept but it’s the challenges, NPCs and antagonists that really make the adventure more than just another fetch quest based adventure. There are interesting goos, people with hideous things living inside them, witch hunters and more. Once all that is dealt with, you have to get inside the priory and see the horrors that await you there. Evil monster babies, nuns who vomit up sentient blood thingies with a taste for horseflesh, conjoined spouses, a troll abbot, horribly deformed people and of course the coven that caused all this to begin with. The adventure will then end in one of two ways: The ritual is stopped or the ritual is successful. In either case, every PC might be dead at the end of the adventure or some might live. This is LotFP after all, so character death is as guaranteed as something like Call of Cthulhu or Dungeon Crawl Classics, so don’t form emotional attachments to that sheet of paper full of stats and your handwriting. Each ending is pretty interesting its own right, and so even if the PCs fail to stop the coven or even all die horribly, they will (more than likely) enjoy the ending that occurs.

Besides the adventure, No Salvation For Witches also contains fourteen pages devoted to “The Tract of Teratology” which may or may not come into play within the adventure, based on character actions and/or who they encounter. More than likely it won’t unless the GM really pushes it on players and perhaps they should because for the GM the Tract is a collection of random tables for them to roll on. What is all the randomness for? Demon summon of course! There are eighteen different d100 charts which, when combined, will provide a ritual for summoning a demon and all the necessary stats. The creature could become an ally to the PCs or a mortal enemy. It’s all in the dice! Let’s take a look at one I rolled up specifically for this review.

The ritual involves lashing a person to a giant wheel and beating them with a cudgel or some other blunt object for one to two hours, or until all the limbs break. As well, you’ll need to burn Three longspoons of white crystalline arsenic and the victim’s esophagus. Doing so will get you a twenty foot high elephant whose tongue has serrated hooks at the end of it and who gives off a strong scent of eucalyptus. It is helpful towards PCs, has 5d8 Hit Points, an AC of 14, has two attacks of 1d3 each, a movement of 60′ and a morale of 12. It also gets a +1 to hit. That’s not a bad spell or ally, now is it? Sure it requires the horrible torture and eventual demise of a peasant but they’re an NPC. They might as well be wearing a sign that says “Orc.” Of course, there is a bit of a catch. The creature has a compulsion to force two people who love each other to fight to the death. Doubly unfortunate, the caster must be one of the two fighting while the creature watches and if they fail to do so, said ritual participants will vomit up blood for 1d4 damage. Of course the creature is only around for a day before vanishing silently, so it’s a small bit of pain to endure in exchange for a giant meat shield.

As you can see the Tract is a lot of fun for the DM, although maybe not as much for the players. It’s worth picking up No Salvation for Witches just to introduce this book to player sand watch them use it over and over until they are the cause of their own demise, Deck of Many Things style.

Overall, NSFW is a lot of fun to both run and play. Like a lot of Lamentations of the Flame Princess, this adventure is NOT for everyone and the levels of gore, nudity and the like could turn off some games rather than entertain them, so you’ve been warned. Fans of the product line will fine this a fine addition to their collection and may even kick themselves for not backing the Indiegogo project. You’re going to want to be a GM with a good deal of experience under your belt to run this but if you can pull this off, you and your gamer buddies will have a lot of fun trying to make it out of this one alive.

No Salvation for Witches (or 'NSfW', which is appropriate) is a new adventure for the Lamentations of the Flame Princess (LotFP) role playing game, written by Rafael Chandler. It is a full color, hardcover book of 68 pages. My review is of the PDF version.

LotFP prides itself on being "Weird Fantasy" and that is very true of all of the adventures that I've read so far. I'd actually also add "Horror" into that description, because they are full of uncomfortable, troubling and often grotesque concepts and imagery.

Overall Impression

This is a nice looking product. The text is well formatted and conversational in tone, the illustrations are beautiful (even if they are often disturbing) and the layout is easy to read. The only exception to this rule is that occasionally, for no discernable reason, the book switches from a 2-column layout to a single one. In a printed form, this isn't a big deal, but on a tablet or smartphone, it interrupts the flow a little. That's just a minor quibble, though.

I like this kind of adventure: it is more of a sandbox / event, with plenty of detailed locations, events and NPCs which are all moving and advancing despite the player characters' involvement.

One warning, though: there are plenty of old-school "GOTCHA!" moments that can completely change, maim, deform or destroy the player characters. If I ever get a chance to run this, and I hope that I will, I'll probably change those events a little bit, or make some of them reversible at least.

Sections

The Table of Contents is well laid-out, and each chapter is a clickable shortcut (surprisingly, I've encountered many PDFs that don't include this very basic functionality). Like the rest of the book, it is very easy to scan and read.

There's a Preface, which outlines the author's goals and the adventure's style. He states quite clearly that this isn't "grimdark" it's "glibdark". I found that amusing. There definitely is a crazy, death-metal feel to this one. I also like how the author explains the core idea behind this campaign and the importance of an established time-limit.

The Setting explains things quite well and succinctly. There's some history, but not too much, as well as a brief description of the main location and its surroundings. Like many of the LofFP adventures, this one also takes place in 17th century Europe, which I like a lot! This section is only a single page and so it isn't overwhelming: it's easy for the Game Master to grasp and absorb.

The Backstory is similarly short and sweet, confined to a single page. It explains why things are the way that they are without overdoing it. If I ever finish any of my own written adventures, I'll take a lesson from Rafael Chandler and use this method.

The next chapter focuses on the leading characters: the main "antagonist", the alien thing that is behind everything and the main cronies. I probably liked this chapter the most: just enough information about each character (history, description and motivations), short stat-blocks and some illustrations. My only complaint is that there isn't an image of the main villain (yes, she's on the cover, and I suppose that's enough...) Her cronies, while they get a gorgeous full page group portrait, do not get individual images next to their descriptions. Again, not really necessary, but a few of them were not easy to spot in the group "photo" (others were easy, like the one with facial scars and the one in full armor).

There's just enough information about these characters (her 5 assistants) to make them interesting without going too far. My main gripe is that nothing is done with them at all in the adventure itself. We know where they are, but not what they're up to. All this effort went into making each of them have unique and rich backgrounds and I doubt that any of that will ever come up. So, my assumption is that all of the background detail or fluff in this chapter is just for the GM's amusement. I was amused and entertained, I admit.

The next chapter is about the mysterious Spheres that appear in the land. They're pretty interesting, I must admit (and WEIRD). Their presence is a bit of a puzzle and there are some key clues for the heroes to find that will help them figure them out (and what they do).

Again, they are another element of GM "Gotcha!". Without any clues, some of them will really mess around with the player characters. Brutally, even.

Locations is the next section of the book. There are a handful of interesting places to encounter and explore. What I like about them is that they all have events that are drawn towards the climax. There's a good dose of horror and strangeness at each.

Reading the PDF, it was a bit clumsy to flip back and forth to the map to find out where everything was in relation to each other. I'm a bit of a simpleton in this: I need to constantly check a map to grasp everything. I think that I would have like to have a small visual or map in each location chapter for reference.

Next is the big chapter on the main location of this adventure: The Priory. This is where everything happens of great importance. Lots of weird and horrific stuff to discover and interact with. Great stuff! Even if I never get a chance to run this adventure, I'd want to use this location in some other campaign.

Lastly is the creepy Tract of Teratology, a demon summoning tool kit (a collection of tables that you can roll on or just choose from). The most horrific part of this section are the Ritual types, each involving gruesome human sacrifice. Really grotesque: I was actually relieved to get to the parts that generate the summoned monster. Tentacled horrors with human faces and a crab's body I can handle: sawing people in half while they're alive is much harder for me, I admit.

There's a lot here to work with: you can create literally THOUSANDS of different kinds of creatures: their appearance, powers, their scent, their personalities and their compulsions. Really cool stuff. I'm adding this to my library of random tables, for sure.

The last two pages are maps and floorplans of the various locations. Very nice illustrations. Everything in this book has top-notch production values.

Conclusion

This is a well produced and well written module. Even if you don't run the adventure as-is, you'll get a lot of great material (locations, monsters, events etc...) that you can transplant into your other campaigns. The Demon Ritual Summoning section (Tract of Teratology) is also a really cool and useful tool.

A warning, though: there's a lot of gruesome material in here. This book, like most of the LofFP library, is not for the faint of heart or easily upset by occult and body horror. For all its strangeness, this is horror first, pure and simple. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing: it's just something to consider.

I became interested in the Lamentations adventures after its epic Free RPG Day "Better than Any Man" adventure. I'm happy to say that, while No Salvation for Witches (guess what the acronymn abbreviates to) is smaller in scope, it's much more manageable for GMs to run (less prep despite its warning it's not a low-prep adventure), yet has the same play qualities that attracted me to Better.

No, not the shock and gore (although it's in No Salvation, too). Both Better and No Salvation place an event in medieval history as an key part of the story. In the case of No Salvation, it's the horrible effects of hyperinflation, brough on by The Price Revolution (no, I haven't heard of it either and it should have been taught) on the lowest classes. Both have strong motivated characters, who happen to be persecuted women, who want to make their world a better place. Both have their "Road to Hell" NPCs doing the Wrong Thing for the Right Reasons. And both have their utterly alien entities present in the adventure. No gods as personifications of man here!

Sure, the gore and shock are there. Particularly, the color and detailed illustrations have less the dread of horror, as they often "show you what the monster looks like", as it were. However, GMs can use this as a playing aid, by describing and not showing the horrors, and letting the players create the terror in their own minds. The art is by Jason Rainville, and I highly suggest looking at his other work on his website.

Speaking of horror, it's often difficult to run a horror fantasy RPG, because the characters can often blast and hack their way through a problem. However, with No Salvation, the almost X-Files encounters present off-balancing situations with terrible consequences. Several scenes start off with a case of science fiction strangeness, plainly telling players that someone's changed the rules, and good luck not setting off a chain reaction that ends everything.

The adventure ends with a magic item random generator, ostensibly for ritual employing tomes to summon other beings, but useful as a random ritual generator, and random demon attribute generator.

Shock and gore aside, it's a shame that more adventures aren't written like this: motivated NPCs, historical backdrop, and fantastic situations. Highly recommended.