An Endzeitgeist.com review

The first installment of the Hazardous Habitats-series clocks in at 39 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page advertisement, 1 page ToC, 2 pages yellow (back cover), leaving us with 33 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

This review was moved up in my reviewing queue at the request of my patreon supporters.

Okay, so what is this? Well, some of Frog God Games’ most criminally-underrated books for PFRPG was the series of “Perilous Vistas”-books, massive hardcovers, which included a ton of rules and information focusing on various biomes, with supplemental rules, monsters, and usually 3 to 4 adventures. Some of the adventures from these hardcovers have since then been taken out of the books, to various degrees of success, but the original Perilous Vistas books have an honored spot n my bookshelf – yes, I have them all.

Anyhow, the thing I enjoyed most about them, hands down? That’d be the assumption, very crucial to the books, that gamers are not simply consumers, that we want to know about a variety of topics. If there is anything I bemoan about the advent of d20-based systems, it’s that many books started to assume that only combat-relevant material needs to be featured. Compare e.g. 3.X’s Sandstorm book with Wilderness Survival Guide, and you know what I mean. In many ways, the environment, a crucial component for adventuring, all too often is relegated to window-dressing. And the GM who actually WANTS to know about an environment? They are often left to their own devices, and/or with small and nigh-inconsequential tidbits.

Well, and here’s what this series does: It takes the lavishly-researched content originally featured in the Perilous Vistas series of books, and provides a system neutral (system agnostic, based loosely on 5e, really), expanded iteration of the material provided in these books – in this case, the material provided in Dunes of Desolation.

The book kicks off with a general discussion of deserts – including the discussion on dry heat vs. humid heat, and the misconception that bright sands are the source of the desert being this hot. The book explains how deserts come to be…and before you yawn – no, this is no dry textbook, but it is genuinely helpful and well-presented information that assumes that the reader is both intelligent and wants to increase their knowledge. This gets two thumbs up from me.

Anyhow, the book then proceeds to depict a range of desert types, including percentile terrain element tables – hot and dry deserts, for example, can have a 10% chance for a salt pan, and the effects of dunes etc. on overland speed are noted in an appropriate, system agnostic manner. Better yet, we get a d20-based table of suggested encounters for each of the desert types featured. Furthermore, tables for population effects on demographics and humanoid demographics for settlements in the respective environment are provided..and these themselves influence the attitudes of the local humanoids! Political systems, notes on lifestyle and sample adventure ideas are also supplied alongside adventure locations.

This system is also provided for semiarid deserts, and briefly mentions coastal deserts (without going into this level of detail), before taking a look at the importance of water and its sources, from oases to rivers to alternate sources, with tables for water availability by desert type provided, with the tables differentiating properly between seasons. Desert travel, chance for the presence of settlements and notes on the construction and maintenance of roads (and the inevitable tolls!) can be found and are all explained, before we take a gander at the various means of travel, starting (obviously) with camels, before discussing mules and more exotic mounts.

Very interesting: Since the book is system neutral, the inevitable hazards that need to be in such a book to make it complete, are grouped in 4 difficulty levels, ranging from “easy” to “arduous”, with notes on detection, identification, avoidance, and escape provided alongside dimensions (with their own categories) and effects, which allow you to judge the intended level of challenge the hazard should provide. Since this may be a bit hard to picture, let me give you an example – the first one the book provides: Contaminated Water (Terrestrial, Disease). The hazard lists the following:

“Detection: Moderate Wisdom ability check or skill check pertaining to diseases, medicine, or nature Identification: Moderate Intelligence ability check or skill check pertaining to diseases, medicine, or nature Avoidance: Moderate Constitution-based saving throw completely avoids hazard Escape: Boiling or otherwise purifying contaminated water before drinking it Dimensions: Individual Effects: Harmful Damage Type: Constitution, hit points, or Wisdom Condition: fatigued, nauseated, or sickened Complication: Disease deals additional damage every 2d6 hours until cured Cure/Remedy: Successful Moderate Constitution saving throw made immediately after taking damage.”

This can be further modified – the book provides variants. Cholera lists: “Increase Effects to Dangerous.” Now, as you can glean from the above, the baseline from which we are supposed to extrapolate the mechanical effects would probably be 5e – while this is not a hard thing by any means, I can’t help but feel that this is where the system-agnostic approach is simply not as convenient as a proper version provided for a system, but that may be me.

On the plus-side, we actually differentiate between wet and dry quicksand, and various different poisons are also codified in pretty much such a way. A bit of a lost chance here – having at least a few poisons with a listed mundane way to cure them other than an ability check would have been nice to see. A random encounter table, and weather codified in this way can also be found – the latter comes with daily high and low temperature tables, chances for precipitation, and wind speeds. A missed chance here: temperatures are only provided in degrees Fahrenheit, and wind speeds assume mph (though the tables don’t explicitly state the latter). Ideally, it’d have been nice to have °C values as well, as °F doesn’t make sense to those not raised with it as a means to gage temperatures. It’s one of the things that keeps bothering me in RPG-books; the second value (kmh/°C) imho would really increase the value of books for those not as accustomed to imperial systems. This is particularly obvious when seeing that the text per se does feature °C values; same goes for the hazards themselves – these, alas, are absent from the temperature tables, though.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are very good on a formal and rules-language level, where present. Layout adheres to a nice two-column full-color standard, with the artworks provided differing in style and relevance to the matter at hand. The book comes fully bookmarked with nested bookmarks for your convenience.

I love Tom Knauss’ environmental books, and the Hazardous Habitats pdfs unlocking them for a wider audience is a good thing in my book. It is impossible to put down this book without having learned some cool tidbit about deserts, and the material never loses its focus on being a gaming supplement – it is educational without being boring or preachy, and I love it for that. After reading this book, you’ll think about deserts within the context of the game as more than just dry places with lots of sand. So yeah, that gets two thumbs up, and ensures that this book is one you can return to time after time.

On the downside, there are a few components that should be noted: Flash floods, while mentioned numerous times, are not codified as a hazard. I was also rather puzzled to see the book provide °C values (YAY!), only to forget them in the tables to determine high/low temperatures. So yeah, there are a few nitpicks, but if you’re accustomed to the imperial systems, you won’t mind those. The hazards work as well as they can with a system agnostic approach; personally, I’d have preferred adherence to a specific system, but I’m a bit of a stickler there.

As a whole, this is a rewarding, well-crafted environmental sourcebook only very slightly tarnished by a few niggles. Hence, my final verdict will be 4.5 stars, rounded up due to in dubio pro reo.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This massive supplement clocks in at 84 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page inside of front cover, 1 page editorial, 2 pages of introduction (including a ToC for tables), 4 pages of SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 74 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

This review was requested by my patreon supporters.

So, the first thing you need to know here, is that the material within makes use of Dreamscarred Press’ subsystems, most prominently akasha and psionics; beyond that, e.g. the new class that kicks off the supplement, the helmsman, does reference Path of War’s Knowledge (martial) skill. This poses an interesting question: For which tables and power-levels is this book intended? As you all know, Pathfinder’s first edition at one point somewhat split its demographic: On one hand, we have people that just want to play the game; on the other, there are people that derive a lot of satisfaction from pushing the system; builds and system mastery are important, as are the challenges posed. The latter demographic has split further, with particularly Path of War providing a convenient reference point, as it eliminated several limiters and balancing concerns of the system, with the explicit goal of providing a power-fantasy that other adherents of system mastery considered to be contrary to their own preferences. These issues were not inherent in Path of War’s system, but something chosen deliberately, and this paradigm did influence many of Dreamscarred Press’ latter offerings, which often sport innovative, genuinely awesome designs, but also a disregard for the power-levels featured by pretty much anything Paizo etc. released; this tendency can be seen in many post-Ultimate Psionics psionics releases, but the core framework of akasha is remarkably bereft of the like, oriented pretty much mathematically in line with Paizo’s offerings. So, where does this book fall in the spectrum?

Well, let us start by examining the helmsman baseclass, which is a veilweaver with d8 HD, 4 + Int skills per level, ¾ BAB-progression, good Ref- and Will-saves and proficiency with simple weapons and one martial weapon, as well as with light and medium armor and shields. Of note: The shield proficiency does not exclude tower shields, as customary, which I assume to be intentional here. The governing ability score of the helmsman’s veilweaving is Intelligence, and the class begins with 1 veil and essence, and improves that to 9 and 20, respectively, over the course of its 20-level progression. This puts the class one veil above the guru base class in that regard. Reallocation of essence invested is a swift action, rest is required to unshape and shape veils – you get the idea. The core defining feature of the class would be the companion vehicle or mech (collectively referred to as vessel) gained at 1st level; the effective pilot level is equal to the class level, and the helmsman’s bonded vessel gains all benefits of feats, veils and chakra binds that the helmsman is USING, even if it doesn’t have the corresponding components. Important here, and perhaps something that should have been spelled out more explicitly: USING. This means that benefits that are not based on, well, use, do not necessarily apply. It may sound like a picky differentiation, but it’s an important one imho. Anyways, for example, a Panzer would gain the benefits of an effect contingent on the presence of the feet slot, even though it, well, lacks feet. If a veil generates a weapon, it manifests on the vessel, but uses the helmsman’s size to determine damage dice, and may be used in addition to the vessel’s weaponry. Weapons explicitly wielded in hands do take up a weapon slot for each such weapon created. Size-increases beyond Medium (size reference not capitalized) can take up multiple slots, and the helmsman can reassign what the bonded vessel is relatively painlessly (good) in an 8-hour period.

At this point, you probably realized that this class is basically the anime/mecha pilot in the vein of Gundam, Code Geass, etc., so in order to discuss it, we should take a look at the mecha rules so crucial for the experience of the class before further diving into it. At first level, the character chooses a body type for the mech(a) – agile, bipedal or quadruped/treaded, and the mech must be of the pilot’s size or larger. All damage caused to the pilot is evenly split between pilot and mech, with excess damage from uneven values applied to the mech. If the mech is reduced to 0 HP, it enters a state of critical failure, ejecting the pilot. Repairing a mech takes a DC 10 Craft (Mechanical) check and takes a whole day, replenishing 5 HP; climbing into a mech and activating it is a full-round action, while exiting it can be done as a move action. I like this action economy dispersal here, as it mirrors what we get to see in anime. At 3rd level, the pilot can change the mech’s body type by spending ½ the mech’s HD in hours +1/2 the number of enhancements, rounded down, rebuilding it. During this time, the mech is NOT operational, but existing enhancements may also be changed. A destroyed mech can be replaced within 24 hours, which may not be realistic, but for the purpose of the game, it's a wise decision. Well, and the media this is based on pretty much also follows this paradigm. Mechs grants a bonus to their pilot’s physical ability scores and use the pilot’s mental ability scores; unpiloted or remotely-steered mechs have Strength and Dexterity scores of 10 + the listed bonus. Mechs use the pilot’s BAB, saves, proficiencies and skill modifiers, and do not gain skills or feats of their own. Mechs have a hardness score and take half damage from most energy-based attacks. While piloting, a character can’t wear armor or bulky clothing, and items that provide an AC-increase to the pilot, INCLUDING natural armor bonuses do NOT apply while piloting a mech. Mechs are treated as metal armor, but generally do not per default impose an arcane spell failure.

Mechs are designed for certain types of weapons in mind; this is known as Weapon Affinity; you can picture that as a kind of proficiency, as it influences the type of weapon a mech can wield. Standard weapons can be converted for mech use, though they have to be made for a size that the mech can make use of via weapon slots. There are three types of affinity: Ranged, melee and heavy. The first two are self-explanatory, while the third encompasses a list of weapons ranging from grenade launchers to rail guns and rocket launchers. Basically, if you could picture a weapon being the key-feature of a Gundam mecha that sets it apart, it’s probably heavy. The pilot of a mech with this affinity is considered to have Exotic Weapon Proficiency (heavy weaponry) as long as they are piloting the mech. Now, as for those weapon slots we’ve been talking about: A single weapon slot can accommodate a single Medium or smaller weapon, and in order to weild a weapon, a mech must have it slotted and the pilot must be able to wield it, unless otherwise noted. A crucial difference to regular weaponry: Multiple slots can be combined to fit larger weapons; two weapon slots can be sued to fit a Large weapon; three fit a Huge weapon, 4 a Gargantuan, and 5 a Colossal weapon, and such slotted weapons are thankfully not subject to the clusterf*** that are the rules for inappropriately-sized weaponry. That’s a good thing. If the linear progression instead of an exponential or similar curve struck you as odd: Attacks with a slotted weapon are made at the pilot’s full BAB, but no iterative attacks may be executed. Attacks with natural attacks or unslotted weapons executed by mechs are penalized with -5 to the attack roll.

Okay, so how does the mech companion operate? Well, they have a ¾ HD-progression, which means they start of at 1 HD and improve that 15 HD at 19th level; The mech has a ½ AC bonus progression, and a Hardness that begins play at 1 and improved up to 19; at 5th level and every 4 levels thereafter, the aforementioned Strength and Dexterity bonuses granted by the mech increase by +2, for a total of +8 at 17th level. At 11th and 20th level, we have size increases (you can stay your usual size and instead get +2 Dexterity and 10 additional hit points), and the mech gets a BP (battery point)-contingent. When a mech uses a technological item or weapon, they may have charges drawn from this pool instead, and the battery recharges at the rate of 2 per hour. It is important to note for GMs that this should probably not allow for use of nanite hypoguns; the BP is clearly supposed to be electricity, whereas the hypogun’s charges represent nanites, as made very clear by their capacity, which, unlike most technological items, explicitly reads “1 nanite canister”, not the simple numerical value usually presented for charges sourced from batteries. This is important, because we’d otherwise have a pretty overkill healing angle here. Explicitly stating this caveat in the rules here would have been more convenient for the reader.

At 1st level, the BP-contingent is still 0, but every level thereafter, it improves by 2. At 1st level, 5th level, and every 4 levels thereafter, the mech also gets a mech enhancement. Depending on which basic shape you choose from the three available, you also get a unique 5th-level advancement; these frame-based enhancements generally improve every 5 levels after 5th.

Okay, so, what do the base frames provide? The agile frame is Small (as such only available for Small characters at low levels), and nets +20 ft. speed, +1 armor, two secondary wing attacks à 1d4, Dexterity +4 and 5 bonus hit points; Weapon Affinity is ranged, and we have 1 weapon slot. At fifth level, the frame nets a fly speed that improves regarding speed and maneuverability at higher levels. The mech can hover sans check. Bipeds are Medium, get +2 to armor, a primary slam at 1d6, +2 Dexterity and Strength, 10 bonus hit points, Weapon Affinity for melee and ranged weapons, and 2 weapon slots. Bipeds start play with the arms enhancement, and at 5th level, their arms net a +2 shield bonus to AC, which improves at higher levels. This bonus btw. explicitly increases a shield bonus of a regular shield, if present. Quadruped/treaded mechs start play as Large (size modifiers listed), get +10 ft. movement, +4 AC, a primary slam à 1d8, +4 Strength, 15 bonus hit points, the stability trait, Weapon Affinity for heavy weapons, and 2 weapon slots. The 5th-level advancement nets an additional weapon slot at no cost (ditto for higher levels).

Unless I have miscounted, there are 23 mech enhancements provided. These include gaining an additional weapon affinity, a new weapon slot, and at 7th level, you can get e.g. +2 AC; the equivalents of Weapon Focus and Weapon Specializations and their Greater versions can also be gained; 9th level allows for the taking of +5 hardness. Quicker reload for firearms and heavy weaponry, arms, slow fall hovering for quadrupeds, swim speed and air filters, +15 for Acrobatics and Ride checks made to jump (should imho be typed bonuses), size increases (may first be taken at 7th level, then again at 17th level), climb speed for quadrupeds/treaded ones. I did notice an issue: Superior Arcforged Armor provides a hardness increase of 5 and requires Advanced Armor Plating as a prerequisite, with which it notes that it stacks; said enhancement, however, does grant an AC bonus, not hardness. The enhancement should not refer to Advanced Armor Plating, but Arcforged Armor, which does indeed grant hardness 5. Thrusters are also included, and there is an option to increase the damage dice of weapons you have Weapon Affinity for. Shielded cockpit and cerebral reinforcement are perhaps the most potent enhancements, available at 13th and 15th level, respectively; both net you an assortment of the construct immunities of the mech. Since these are locked behind high level prerequisites, I can get behind them.

Interesting as far as this enhancement engine is concerned: The mech’s arms can wield weapons “appropriately sized” (should reference the mech) and make iterative attacks with them; when doing so, the mech is treated as having two fewer weapon slots (min 0); this aspect of the engine, while not necessarily hard to understand, at first seems to be weird in conjunction with the base rules, until you realize that the mech’s default slotted weapons essentially operate like natural attacks as a default.

Okay, so, before we return to the helmsman, let’s briefly talk about the mech as a whole: The system is kinda clever in that is presents mechs as a non-autonomous construct, somewhat akin to how e.g. vehicles operate; they also behave in many ways like an armor, like an extension of the character. Mechanically, the closest approximation I could come up with, is probably the synthesis; in many ways, the base mech-engine generates what you’d expect: A serious increase in durability for all piloting characters, with math-escalation built straight into the core engine. At the same time, we have a serious Achilles’ heel built into the whole thing. The cap regarding armor stacking is very much required, and the hardness means that the mechs can withstand punishment they actually take better; at the same time, much like in the respective anime series, they can’t be quickly healed back up, and damage takes longer to heal/repair, unless supplemented by copious amounts of magic. In short: You’ll be hit rather often, and the hits won’t be easily or quickly cured.

This is intended, and indeed imho works rather well, particularly considering that the characters, when ejected, won’t necessarily be properly armored and armed, though it’s not hard to get a dress-as-swift-action armor. The core engine presented operates pretty well. Where I can see serious issues that you need to be aware of, though, is within the interaction with the other components of engines, such as psionics and the like. Mechs allow you to enhance your character significantly regarding their staying power, and as such, powers and spells intended to shield fragile casters, which apply their personal benefits to both mech and pilot, can become problematic, as they’re not intended to bestow their benefits upon tanky, potent things with hardness. Depending on the type of game you run, this may be a significant problem – or not. If you prefer a system that presents less avenues for exploits, I’d strongly recommend making each mech their own target for the purpose of multi-target effects, and to disallow the application of personal-only power and spell-buffing effects to mechs. From a rules-perspective, AoE attacks can be a bit weird in play, and explaining the sequence explicitly would have made sense and made the system a bit easier to grasp: When hit by an AoE attack, you roll the saving throw first, then apply the effects; i.e., if you failed the save, your pilot character takes half damage, and the mech takes the other half; since most AoE-attacks are energy attacks, however, the mech further halves the damage incurred.

After some tinkering and testing, I do think that the engine presented works pretty well for what it tries to do; it presents an engine for mechs that duplicates many of the tropes we expect from the genre well, operating in many ways like a gestalt-lite second mode for the character. The base system operates well and is really enjoyable, but the combination with other systems leaves it wide open, which can become a rather pronounced issue.

Personally, I think that focusing more on breadth of options rather than a deepening of numerical boosts would have been a more rewarding route – more customization for the mech, less static boosts – or, you know, make the static boosts for Strength etc. cost BP. Instead of the nigh impossible to control and balance wide open transparency the system offers, a more controlled system with select exceptions would have probably been the more elegant and robust solution that also retains the uniqueness of classes and class options that do focus on mechs.

Speaking of which, the helmsman did also have an option for vehicles, right? Well, the book presents rules for technological companions, (combat transport vehicle, infiltration transport vehicle, motorcycle, sportscar, and ship); these come with their own base shapes and use the mech’s table and ability gains instead of the default companion stats, following the mech frames with their benefits and enhancements granted. These do warrant some scrutiny as well; ships, in aquatic campaigns, would e.g. be an escalation over the “horse is more deadly than cavalier” low-level issue, as the ship begins play with a Strength score of 24. My observations regarding the potential issues of the mech engine obviously also apply here as a consequence. Since these vehicles also behave as though the driver was mounted, there are some seriously devastating attacks that can be pulled off with them. That being said, if you wanted to play e.g. Knightrider? Here you go.

But let us return to the helmsman class: At 1st level, we get the supernatural hypercharge ability: At 1st level and every odd level thereafter, we get one hypercharge from a list of 13; these are activated as a swift or immediate action, and sport a cost – this is a cost in essence burn, which recovers at the rate of 1 per minute of meditation. 7th, 13th and 17th level unlock previously level-locked hypercharges. Hypercharges last Intelligence modifier rounds (ability score reference not properly capitalized) unless otherwise noted – e.g. one that nets you an additional attack with the same weapon is instantaneous. These hypercharges can be VERY strong. For one point of essence burn, we have an attack roll or saving throw reroll for the bonded vessel as soon as 1st level, and the ability does not specify whether the decision must be made before results are made known. For 2 points of essence burn, we have an instantaneous repair for the bonded vessel equal to twice the helmsman’s level. (Infinite healing exploit is only an issue if you combine it with an option that allows hit points to be shared between constructs and living things.) You can also choose an akashic armament or veil that “the bonded vessel has essence invested in” (which is an odd phrasing that should probably read “´of the bonded vessel that the helmsman has invested essence in” or something like that, increasing that by 3, even beyond the usual cap. Later we have the means to get a combat feat for which the helmsman meets the prerequisites. Which brings me to a question of hypercharges like this: Could you use this hypercharge to gain consecutive feats/mini-feat trees for a limited duration? RAW, that’d be possible. On the plus-side, the high-level options include AoE ranged and melee attacks. Really weird: This is probably the first time that I’ve seen a base class refer to the ability suite of an archetype: The helmsman can also get a hypercharge that lets them learn one of the overdrive abilities of the reactor knight psychic warrior, using Intelligence instead of Wisdom as governing ability score.

Also at 1st level, we have the akashic armaments ability, which lets the helmsman imbue essence in the bonded vessel as though it were a veil; the limit based on veilshaper level applies to each of the armaments separately, not to the overall armaments. Well, scratch that: The armaments are unlocked at 2nd level, and a glimpse at the class table confirms that the text claiming that this is gained at first level, is wrong here – the ability is gained at 2nd level. The benefits are all unlocked, with 9th and 16th level providing new sets of options. The akashic armaments are in line with the existing options: Artillery, for example, nets you a +1 insight bonus to atk and damage with all weapons, and +1 to the save DC, if any, of weapons. This is pretty much a variant of the daevic’s armbands of the irked elephant, minus base damage and bull rush, but plus the DC-angle. Bonus type prevents stacking exploits. That being said, I’m not a big fan of the high-level initiative boost. On a formal level, we have some deviations from the standards here: Threat range is e.g. noted as “15:20”, and we have instances of feats not capitalized and weapon special properties referenced not in italics.

2nd level and every 3 levels thereafter nets a chakra bind in the progression head, feet, wrist, shoulders, headband, neck, body. Balance-wise, the head-chakra is usually gained only at 6th level, at the very soonest for full-caster type akashic characters; for others, the customary level-range is 8+. This does undercut some of the balance options of the system; take djinni’s turban from City of 7 Seraphs: Akashic Trinity, for example: binding this veil to the head slot nets you unassisted personal flight with perfect maneuverability if bound to the head slot as well as a 20% concealment against ranged attacks if you move at least 20 ft. in a single round. Usually, that’s perfectly fine, as you can do it at 6th level, at the soonest, if you’re a nexus or vizier. The helmsman, though? This fellow can pull that off at first level, which violates PFRPG’s balance-assumption of no unassisted flight below 5th level – and it also kinda undercuts the coolness of having an aerial mech. Alternatively, sparkling alicorn nets you a half-celestial unicorn at first level. Via the chakra bind for head; stare of the ghaele’s head chakra bind nets you 1d6+1 rounds of staggering, which is hardcore at the usual 6th level; at first level, it’s overkill. This, more than anything else, would disqualify the class hardcore for me – but guess what? This seems to be yet another error, for the class table does instead provide the hands chakra at 2nd level, which is very much a feasible choice! This is perhaps the most egregious issue in a class’s rules I’ve seen in a while, as it means the difference between “fundamentally broken” and “works well within the confines of the system.” Not cool.

4th, 10th and 19th level net enhanced capacity; 4th level also allows the helmsman to prevent the destruction of their vessel by sacrificing their own hit points. I get and like the intent here, but with a regenerating pilot, this can be somewhat problematic; with a 1/round caveat or a Burn-like mechanic, this’d retain the spirit of the ability, without resulting in the wondrous almost trash-indestructible mech. As written, this ability rewards you for keeping your mech nearly trashed, as the pilot can be healed up quicker than the mech. At 6th level, the helmsman may 1/day (+1/day at 9th level and every 3 levels thereafter) reallocate essence as a free action. 10th level nets the exclusive interface chakra; 12th level nets turboboost. This nets the vessel the ability to gain the benefits of one additional chakra to which any kind of veil can be shaped, but the helmsman takes essence burn equal to the number of essence invested in the chakra each round this is maintained. At 18th level, this is delimited, reducing essence burn to 1 if the vessel has “1 or more points of essence invested in the hypercharge chakra.” Wait. WHAT? Hypercharge is no chakra! That’s a series of abilities that requires essence burn to use, but you don’t invest anything in it? Turboboost is also not a chakra, so is this supposed to reference interface? I genuinely have no idea how the hell this ability is supposed to work. The capstone lets the character shift their essence as an immediate action an unlimited number of times per day, and hypercharge requires one less point of essence burn, minimum 0. The first part of this ability is phrased imprecisely: The core veilweaving feature provides the means to reallocate essence an unlimited amount of time as a swift action; adaptive response improves that to a free action a limited amount of times per day. So…does the capstone mean to imply that it allows for unshaping and constructing of new veils? It seems to refer to previous limitations and is phrased as a delimited, but the ambiguous verbiage makes this very hard to grasp.

The class is supplemented by a variety of favored class options, as well as 3 archetypes. The first would be the experimental engineer is an engine-tweak that is a straight power upgrade: At 3rd, 7th, 11th, 15th and 19th level, you get to choose a mech enhancement, an item creation feat, or a hypercharge. Instead of choosing one hypercharge, you get to choose from more. Pretty sure that, at one point, hypercharges were all unlocked at once, and this archetype was not updated properly. As written, it is a straight power-increase sans drawbacks or tradeoffs. The ability name is not bolded properly. The fleet commander can spread his pilot levels among bonded vessels – a 6th level commander could e.g. have 2 3rd level vessels, 6 1st level vessels…you get the idea; each level, the pilot levels must be allocated, and once chosen, these cannot be redistributed. The fleet shares a bond within 100 ft., +10 ft./level, which includes seeing and hearing through them, which can be ridiculously powerful. The fleet commander can also expend actions to command his fleet; “for example, a fleet commander can spend a move action to command the mechs to move, and a standard action to command them to make a ranged attack.”  At 6th level and every 3 levels thereafter, the fleet commander can issue commands to an additional one of his bonded vessels as the same action, though doing so causes the vessels to take a -1 penalty to atk and skill check “per mech commanded this way.”

The vessels have to take the same action, but may target different targets. Okay, so RAW, only mechs feature in the penalty, which is clearly an error, but at least only one of the vessels gets the very strong vessel shape sharing. Second error: The class feature references the eclipse base class instead of the helmsman. The archetype loses adaptive response. Hypercharges may affect additional vessels for 1 point of essence burn. I spoke too soon, btw.: At 8th level, investing essence into a single bonded vessel for akashic armaments and veils shares that with the entire armada. This replaces enhanced capacity. WAIT. There is no enhanced capacity at 8th level! So what is this supposed to replace? Is the level incorrect? 12th level replaces turboboost with the ability to bond with any vessel as a standard action, treating it as a bonded vessel for all purposes. “The fleet commander may have any number of vessels affected by this ability at a time, but a single vessel may only be considered he bonded vessel of one helmsman at a time.” WTF. Remember: He can see through all. Instead of improved turboboost, we have the ability to command +1 vessel for a point of essence burn How does this interact with the base ability to command more at once at the cost of penalty? Freely? Full choice? Do we need to pay only in excess beyond the basics? The capstone eliminates btw. the base penalties for multi-vessel commands, and allows the vessels to take different actions from each other, which is damn cool – and something the archetype imho should have, at a HIGH cost, gained  earlier.

The themistoclien helmsman replaces the hypercharges with Path of War maneuvers, starting off with 3 maneuvers known, 1 readied, and increasing that to 7 and 5, respectively. The disciplines available are the golden lion, piercing thunder, solar wind, and the atrociously overpowered rajah class’s radiant dawn. Maneuver recovery works via standard action, or he may gain temporary essence equal to half Intelligence modifier (minimum 1) that may be used for essence burn….and guess what? We have the ability to execute maneuvers through the bonded vessel, so essentially rajah lite, minus the rajah’s atrociously OP titles, but with a better chassis, and it has the same enhanced capacity glitch as above. Since it, like the fleet commander, suffers from a progression/ability exchange glitch, and since the core class already has one, I’ll stop trying to judge whether this fares on the power scale. Dual-system options are already hard enough to check when all components are in working order.

Beyond the veil list (which is another indicator that the class SHOULD in fact get the hands chakra…), we also get a couple new veils. Ablation field is for the chest slot and increases your DR or hardness, but RAW doesn’t grant you either, energy adaptation while bound; captain’s guided hand  is cool, as it provides skill boosts and, when bound to hands, lets your vessel ignore mundane difficult terrain and high winds. Dogfighter’s third eye is exclusive to the helmsman’s mid-level interface chakra, and nets you dodge bonus to AC; interesting: you get to move whenever you’re missed, and while bound, you get blindsense. Also for the interface chakra: expansive uplink, which nets long-range telepathy and sensory sharing; general’s beacon which lets you track allies (and enemies, if bound); ironclad bastion is a more straightforward buff with a movement enhancer when bound; navigator’s boon does what it says on the tin, including find the path (not in italics) while bound. Steel ward’s bond lets you interface with constructs and mind probe them. For non-exclusive chakras, we have the technological items disrupting interface bangles for slots wrist, body, which can also disrupt magic when bound, and warlord’s fist, which nets AoE Intimidate.

Okay, since the helmsman class requires knowing the reactor knight archetype, let us cover that fellow next. The reactor knight gets Fly and Knowledge (engineering) and diminished manifesting, and loses warrior’s path, expanded path, secondary path (powers, trance, maneuvers) and pathweaving in favor of a bonded mech and the overdrive ability referenced by the helmsman. The ability lets the archetype expend their psionic focus in favor of Wisdom bonus + ½ class level (minimum 1) boost points, which last for class level rounds and may be used to activate any overdrive known. At 1st level and every 2 levels thereafter, the archetype gets to choose from one overdrive of a list of 12. These include making Fly checks to negate attacks (broken; skills are super-easy to cheese beyond attack rolls), but that one is at least an immediate action, so only once per round. There is also a physical attack at a 60 ft. range that is extraordinary – which is cool. But how is the very possible scenario of preventing the return of the e.g. detached fist handled? How is this explained with weapons? This is missing the usual clarifications of extraordinary melee attacks executed at range. We also have AoE fire damage, or what about adding Wisdom mod to all attack, saving throws and Acrobatics checks for 3 rounds (no, this has no minimum level), for a lousy 2 boost points that are replenished whenever you want? Compare that with the one that lets you spend 1 boost point and a swift action to exit the mech and land on the floor safely with a DC 5 Acrobatics check. Yeah, let me take the latter over a boost that makes palas cry over their grace being sucky. We also have some formatting inconsistencies here, but this review is already very long. The archetype also provides some skill bonuses, mech enhancements and the capstone has a maximum overdrive that lets them use overdrives sans boost point cost. Don’t get me wrong: This is an archetype I per se LIKE, but it is one that desperately needed some limits, some minimum level requirements and internal balancing.

While we’re on the subject of psionic archetypes, let us cover the remainder of them: The Circuitbreaker cryptic loses the altered defense class feature in favor of Technologist and tech-related crafting feats at higher levels. Instead of evasion, they get Psicrystal Affinity and Psi-Core Upgrade; the latter is a rather cool psionics/tech crossover feat that lets your psicrystal bond with weapons, tools, etc. – which is per se neat. I do have one concern with the feat, though: It lets you convert power points into charges on a 5:1 ratio, which, while not exactly game-breaking, can be a pretty strong delimiter in games, considering how batteries, per the default rules, have a serious chance of going kaput. Lacing traps into targets? Nice. As a whole, I consider this archetype to be solid. The Eclipse archetype for the dread class is, unfortunately, not as well-considered. We have a fleet-scenario that sports much of the same issues of the fleet commander, but add to that the ability to execute ranged untyped damage causing touch attacks; that wasn’t good design for the dread, and it’s still not good design when it can be executed at range and via proxies, particularly since it can also channel terrors at range. At this point, the archetype is already disqualified for me. The mecha sentinel aegis is interesting: Instead of the astral suit, we get an astral mecha, including 3-point customizations for mech enhancements and 4-point customization for size increases, with cannibalize suit replaced with the ability to shake off some negative conditions at higher levels. The medimechanic vitalist can add objects and constructs to their collective, and get a modified powers-list instead of medic powers…oh, and they can exchange repair and healing through their collective. And here we have the HP-with-construct-exchange issue I warned of above.

The overcharger wilder gets a variant surge and three exclusive surge bonds to choose from: Armsmaster, Malfunction and Pilot. No surprise: The pilot surge, which nets you a bonded mech or companion vehicle at full CL is by far the best one. The latter should cost the archetype more. The squad leader tactician has a slightly better ratio there, losing coordinated strike and lesser strategies. As a nitpick, his collective erroneously refers to him as mech pilot, but on the plus-side, the feature is modified to lose the range upgrades, but allow for temporary teamwork feat sharing. Using the collective engine to remotely steer unpiloted mecha is also a neat angle, though I am very weary of the fact that this action tree actually is reduced at higher levels, particularly since there is RAW no limit to the number of collectives you can theoretically be a part of at the same time, which could result in some ridiculous scenes regarding the action economy of the faithful mech servants of a ton of tacticians. There are also two non-psionic archetypes: The cyborg engineer vizier may invest essence in technological items, which allows them to consume fewer charges -1 fewer per essence invested. And with the aforementioned hypoguns, that’d mean infinite healing…and the archetype’s out. (As an aside, combine that with the vitalist, and we have infinite mech healing…) The road warrior fighter is straight-forward, a vehicle companion fighter. No complaints here.

The pdf also features class templates and features, which include blade skills for the soulknife that allow for the emulation of technological melee and ranged weapons. The psionic formulist is a class template that removes the extracts mechanic in favor of psionic extracts; these do tend to be more powerful than regular extracts, but the per se solid implementation, comprehensive lists and considering the theme, I’d very much let those guys into my game. The powerful cerebremancer also gets an archetype, the metaforge is essentially a tweak that is based on the variant rule that treats psionics as advanced tech according to the old adage.

The supplement contains a 10-level PrC, the psiborg adept, who gets ¾ BAB-progfression, d8 HD, ½ Fort-and Will-save progression 8/10ths manifesting progression, and 4 + Int skills per level. Bonded mecha, astral suit, mindblade etc. are also advanced; the archetype suspends the draining of charges of technological items while psionic focus is maintained, and they have a higher implantation threshold, gaining progressively more construct-like abilities. The 8th level ability of the PrC is super strong, auto-regaining psionic focus when manifesting a power, provided you didn’t expend it while manifesting that power. The character may also use charges as power points at higher levels – you get the idea.

Rather cool: The book contains a couple of psicrystal archetypes: The Informant, the OS, and the targeting array – and I genuinely love these. The targeting array gets Int-based aid another, including follow-up feats; the OS gets holographic projections and can hijack robots – and we also get a synthetic animal companion archetype. Kudos for this entire section – apart from a few formal hiccups (ability score reference or size not capitalized, etc.), this section really knocks it out of the park! It’s evocative, balanced and creative and shows what the authors can do.

We also get racial variants, 2 for androids, 2 for forgeborn, 1 for the noral (essentially an akashic variant); Skills are not properly capitalized, bonuses are untyped when they should be racial, and they are lopsided, including ability scores on one side of the mental/physical divide, and one of them nets +4 to Intelligence. . Apart from the champion forgeborn, against whom I can field no nitpicks or gripes, I wouldn’t use them. The book also contains 7+ pages of feats, reprinting the required ones like the Craft feats and Technologist, etc. These also include Craft Companion Vehicle and Craft Mech. As a note: The rules for non-companion vehicles to which they refer point to “pieces” instead of gp. We have feats for having the mech integrated into a set of body armor, the usual class feature enhancers for extra hypercharge, enhancements, etc., replace animal companions with a mech, metapsionic means to cause irradiation with powers based on power points expended. Oh yeah, and then there is that feat that lets you always ignore temporary hit points. Always on. Prerequisite: Psionic Weapon or Fist. That’s it. WTF. Kill it with fire.

The book also has an array of over 20 new psionic powers, and the list includes the voyager class and the gambler among the lists provided. These psionic powers need to be vetted VERY CAREFULLY. Assimilate function, for example, is a costly level 8 power that targets an AI: The AI gets one save, and if failing that, it is instantly destroyed and you get all of its knowledge and special abilities. No duration, mind you. You literally get all of it permanently. Do I even need to explain that this can be an issue? Okay, what if I told you that there are powers that make targets resurrect or incarnate as AIs? Ton of narrative potential, but also a high potential for some logic bugs on why bad guys aren’t nigh-unstoppable.On the plus side, we have astral swarms with the robot subtype and cool augmentation options that include instead making gray goo. Weird, beyond the rather prevalent formatting issues: Even if a power has only one augment option, it lists its augmentation as “1.”, which makes quite a few powers look as though something was cut, when cut copy paste was a more likely culprit. We have rather powerful and flexible terraforming-themed powers, including wide-range weather control, but also changes of gravity, fauna, etc.; while I don’t agree with the cost of all of them, I found myself genuinely appreciating these powers, the formatting snafus here and there notwithstanding; for a scifi or science-fantasy campaign, these certainly are cool and appreciated. Quite a few of these are modeled after comparable spells, expanding the range of psionics while retaining a distinct flavor. I also rather appreciated the complex holographic projections, the power-based piloting, interplanetary movement via psionics, etc. – this kind of stuff. High-level tech-wrecking is cool. Not so cool: One augmentation of a power that lets you recharge tech via psionics lets you multiply the charges by recharging multiple items at once. Still, as a whole, one of the strongest chapters of the book.

The final section includes notes to reflavor both akasha and psionics as cybertech; in the case of the former, we get 4 veils: hover boots, H.U.D., micro-missile gauntlet and nanite cloud. The former being e.g. a variant of lavawalker’s boots that instead of resistances grants you an enhanced speed; H.U.D. is a reflavored sentinel’s helmet – you get the gist. The take on akasha is clever, in that it focuses on flavor; the one on psionics goes a different route, and recommends making them no longer susceptible to dispel magic etc. – essentially, it’s a re-establishing of the psionics-are-different paradigm, with the caveat that effects that affect technology now also affect psionics. Provided your campaign sports enough tech-related materials and effects/spells, this works – if not, be very careful, as psionics already are pretty potent. The section also presents three variants of psionic item creation feats for this context, and adds spells as powers to some class lists.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are not even close up to the standards of Legendary Games; beyond the rather copious deviations in formatting I noticed, the supplement unfortunately also suffers from several issues on the rules-language level, which include ones that wreck the functionality of otherwise cool concepts. Beyond that, the balancing of quite a few options, internal and external, is dubious. This feels like an excellent first draft; not like a finished book. Layout adheres to the series’ two-column full-color standard that LG-fans may also know from Starfinder supplements. The supplement sports quite a bunch of full-color artworks. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience.

Matt Daley and Michael Sayre are both talented designers, but the long and painful genesis of this book is readily apparent. The core engine presented is an interesting one that succeeds at its intended goal of depicting rules for a game alike e.g. Gundam SEED, but it is also one that would have benefited from not trying to fuse all those sub-systems – in many ways, one of the things that undo parts of this book, is that it loses track of all the moving parts of the systems it taps into, misses balancing caveats that were clearly intended to be there, misses internal level prerequisites for some ability arrays, etc.

This is particularly evident, as the book does e.g. show a cognizance of balancing caveats regarding e.g. threat range limitations and similar fine details that often are overlooked. The intent is here, the execution falls a bit short. As a consequence, the power-levels fluctuate starkly between OP and “I’d use and allow that without missing a heartbeat!” regarding quite a few pieces of content, and the issues are never there out of necessity for a vision, they are there because of what feels like refinement missing.

Again: The core of Arcforge’s engine does its job in a solid manner, though expansion of it instead of the inclusion of the archetypes might have been the more prudent strategy. In many ways, this feels like one of the most rushed books I’ve seen by Legendary Games so far.

After I had perused the mecha-engine, I was excited to see whether the classes and class features would offset some of its potential rough spots, but instead, they went the other way, exacerbating some flaws with numerous exploits, a ton of glitches, problems in functionality, etc. In many instances, supplemental materials with the proper focus could have rendered the engine a Top Ten-level masterstroke – the potential is here. Still, this does leave me hopeful for future installments!

And yet, while this book is deeply flawed, and while I’d advise extreme caution when implementing it in your campaign, it is also a book that is genuinely inspiring, that has its moments of brilliance, and that, if you can get your players to agree to refraining from gaming the system in its plentiful available ways, can make it a compelling cornerstone for entire campaigns. I just wished this had received the control, clean-up and refinement it needed. As provided, I can only recommend this with some serious reservations, and can’t go higher than 3 stars, consisting of a median of some components in the lower rating echelons, and some in the higher ones.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This booklet clocks in at 32 pages, 1 page editorial/ToC, 1 page thank you note, leaving us with 30 pages of content, laid out in 6’’ by 9’’ (A5) – and yes, the pdf does not have the front and back cover as part of the pdf itself. I also own the PoD softcover, which is a stapled booklet. My review is based on both versions.

While this book is designated as OSR, it is actually almost system neutral – apart from singular references to SAVE or the sparse damage value here and there, the book is not limited to such games in its utility.

So, the pdf begins by explaining the Hebrew expression of “contracting the path/shortening the way” – which is a perfect way to think of portals and gates. The supplement then begins to talk about portals and gates in a game context: As a plot device, as a shortcut, and about their significance regarding connections – this might be me talking in a post-COVID-19-world, but after playing Death Stranding, I have actually a greater appreciation of using and not using portals as far as their significance.

The supplement then proceeds to talk about types of portals – one-way portals, coupled ones, hubs and portal nexus set-ups, and, of course, relays and portal groups. Particularly portal relays are criminally underrated as far as I’m concerned, so thinking in a methodic manner about the subject matter? Seriously helpful.

Beyond that, we take remote perception, as well as awareness of the portal and its accessibility into account. In short: We begin with a serious of considerations that helps the Gm think of the content herein in a structured manner.

The book then brings us to the portal itself and provides a d20 generator with three columns, which lets you determine portal frame, opening and extras – to give you an example, I got a frame of living flesh, with the opening consisting of psychedelic colors and which emits an alkali odor. Cool!

Portal keys are up next – they can be physical objects, non-physical concepts, or simply esoteric names – and once more, we get a d20-based generator with 4 relevant columns: I got an “Exegetic shibboleth of the unearthly peregrination.” Come on, that is cooler than just some portal key, right?

Of course, the construction of portals also requires some consideration, and the supplement suggest 5K gold and a week of work – this is what I’d suggest for OSR-games; for others, I’d adjust the price accordingly – unless you want some serious portal hopping. The section provides a d10 table of considerations pertaining to construction: Perhaps portals can only be erected on ley lines, or the mystic toponyms must be carved into the portal…but unfortunately, they also must be palindromes (have fun making your PCs deal with this…)…and what about the implication of requiring the bones of twins, shuffled and then separated? shudder Really neat ideas!

However, the main meat of the booklet is devoted to the massive PORTATRON, a gigantic portal openings generator. This generator consists of a d10-table “The Portal looks like…”, and 1d6 “…and you will find it” – Here, I got “A well or pit in the ground, which when opened is filled with mist, which will be found in a shrine, with an altar located in front of it. The next table has a promising header: “And do you remember when I told you it was safe? I lied because…” – this table has 17 entries, and is rolled on a d30; I got entry 6, which is: “IT BURRRNS!!! Take 3d6 fire damage, SAVE for half damage. Maybe due to lasers: PEW PEW PEW! Or RADIOACTIVITY!!!” There is a fun and often irreverent tone in some entries, but never to the extent where I found it intrusive. As you can see, while the book does have notes like “save” or “Save or die”, it is for the most part system neutral – the damage values and negative consequences for some portals lend themselves to old-school playing, but also represent one of my gripes: I don’t think that using a portal (unless it’s sabotaged/the PCs have botched something should be lethal; save or die is warranted when the players screwed up. So yeah, not a big fan of this aspect.

Next, we have a d12 table of “the Key is…” – most of these have 6 to 8 subentries, which then might have more subsections. In my sample run, I got “An action, which must be carried out in front of the portal”;subentry + sub-section: the password must be sung.” The key in my test-run was related to ( a d4-table)…nothing specific. After that, we get a 10-entry d20-table to determine why the key’s special. Here, I got that the key can open d6-in-6 portals, but always one-way and towards the same destination.

And then, we have the largest table herein – a massive d666 table. The tongue-in-cheek “you end up in R’lyeh”-entry can be found, but is certainly not representative: The PCs might end up in a fortress of petrified soldiers, actually a child’s toy, or in a jungle in a huge impact crater, where a osmium-iridium meteorite is constantly seeping oozes. My test-run delivered the following entry: “ The study of the great sorceress Edonoplechtus VI; 1-in-6 she’s here researching some crossbreed monsters; else she just left all her pets here. Now yo have a good excuse to unleash the lobstegasuaruses, crocodingoes, ducksharks and roosturgeons you found in that monster manual.” I loved this one. It made me stat up a lobstegasaurus. This table, btw.? Its entries are massive – 12 pages of destinations!

The final pages of the supplement are essentially a portal-relevant appendix N, with each entry properly explained and contextualized, from Ultima Underworld II to Planescape, Portal, Dr. Who, Stargate, etc.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting re very good ona formal and rules-language level. Layout adheres to a one-column b/w-standard with minimum frills, and the supplement features tastefully-chosen public domain art. The pdf annoyingly has no bookmarks, which makes using it a colossal pain – I’d recommend print over pdf here…also because this is a book that you can use time and again.

Paolo Greco’s portal booklet is one of these nifty GM-evergreens that you can use time and again. The book starts off with some handy considerations when it comes to thinking about portals, and then provides this ginormous, quick to use and incredibly diverse generator. If I have any valid complaints against this, then that’d be that I’d have loved to see it subscribe to a proper system for adequate pricing of portal construction, or to go full-blown system neutral. That, and the few save or sucks, which are simply not that helpful in a book about random portal generation.

That being said, the playful tone that never became obtrusive, the sheer imagination here, and the fact that this covers a topic only scarcely touched in such detail certainly makes this one of the handy booklets I’ve been using time and again. For the pdf version and its diminished utility, you might want to subtract a star, but my gripes notwithstanding, I’d be a colossal hypocrite if I rated this anything but 5 stars + seal of approval – I’m using this too often, and have too much fun doing so, to rate this any other way. If you want to make your portals more diverse, esoteric and strange, look no further.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This module clocks in at 29 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page advertisement, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 23 pages of module, so let’s take a look!

This review was moved up in my reviewing queue as part of a series of requests by my patreon supporters.

Well, this module was originally penned as part of the criminally underrated series of environmental sourcebooks penned by Tom Knauss. To be more precise, this module originally was released as one of 3 modules in the “Marshes of Malice” swamp sourcebook, which I also own. Unlike the modules in “Mountains of Madness”, the adventures featured in “Marshes of Malice” do not constitute a mini-AP of sorts, which is good news for standalone presentations like this one.

Now, while the original version in Marshes of Malice made use of the expanded environmental hazards featured in the hardcover, this stand-alone version somewhat deemphasizes this aspect, and does not feature dead references to said rules – the module can be run as is and has been properly turned into a stand-alone version.

“Fishers of Men” is an adventure for 6th-level characters, and is set in the Dragonmarsh Lowlands of the Lost Lands campaign setting – for lorehounds of the Lost Lands, this means that this is pretty easy to connect to Rappan Athuk, if desired. It should also be noted that, while the module doesn’t mention that, an important NPC to the plot comes from Endhome, the setting of “The Lost City of Barakus.” I suggest 6 characters for this adventure, and I should note that this is an old-school adventure – it is difficult by design, and probably one of the harder ones penned by the author. It is per se a location-based adventure with a relatively heavy combat focus, so a well-rounded party is very much recommended. The module sports readaloud text for your convenience.

Theme-wise, this module showcases the author’s flexibility, as it leans heavily into fantasy-horror themes, and if I didn’t know better, I would have assumed that Richard Pett or Nick Logue had written this, so yeah – this is a pretty dark one.

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

… .. .

All right, only GMs around? Great! So, Oliver Quaywright is a visionary gourmand from Endhome, and one who kicked off a culinary trend when he realized the savory taste and succulent flesh of the mollusks from the Dragonmarsh Lowlands, An entrepreneur at heart, Quaywright realized he had struck gold, and proceeded to erect an impressive fishery to provide the supply for his delicious culinary creations – renowned among the elite. Quaywright, dubbed madmen and visionary, prospered, and while an evil slumbers in the Dragonmarsh Lowlands, it’s ultimately coincidence that provided the impetus for the grisly proceedings featured herein.

Tsathogga’s vile mind and hatred had consumed a chuul named Quattu, and said chuul stumbled over a bauble – an ioun stone, as it turns out – one that made the thing smarter. It could read the shipping label of the unfortunate it had happened upon – and a twisted plan gestated. Rallying sea hags and crabmen to its cause, the creature took the well-defended fishery in one fell swoop. The mollusk fishery, with its surprisingly-plausible pre-industrial layout, has since then been turned into a human slaughterhouse, while its servitors scour the Canyon River for prey. It’s debauchery and consumption flipped on its head, with impromptu, man-powered conveyor belts, the infestation called “purple rot”, and the horrid new masters of the fishery making for formidable foes. The living quarters of the place come with a pretty massive table of things to find, which let you add further detail to the savagery, and with azure lily pollen and the like, the complex is not for the faint of heart to tackle.

Indeed, this adventure is best tackled as a kind of assault on a fortified base by the party, with a combination of Stealth, etc. – structurally, an alert-response array of strategies would have been nice to have for the adversaries. Primarily mentioning that, since a GM responding to a full frontal assault with the adversaries herein will make the PCs rue the day… On the plus-side, the environment is pretty darn sandboxy, and allows for a wide variety of different approaches.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are very good on a formal and rules-language level. Layout adheres to the series’ two-column b/w-standard, and the pdf comes with neat b/w-artworks – particularly the one depicting the fishery and its entrance deserves being called out as awesome. The pdf-version comes fully bookmarked for your convenience. The cartography is b/w – and, you guessed it. The 5 player-friendly versions of the maps that were included in Marshes of Malice? They are absent from this book. This is particularly jarring for the overview map of the massive compound of the fishery, as there is a TON going on there, and the PCs can easily scout out the map. So yeah: No player-friendly maps, in spite of them demonstrably existing. Boo!

Tom Knauss’ “Fishers of Men” has survived the transition to stand-alone module better than many of its brethren. The adventure retains the vast majority of its charm and horrifying, gory premise, and that’s a good thing. On the downside, the loss of the player-friendly maps makes the adventure significantly less convenient to execute than in its previous iteration – I certainly know that I am not particularly keen on drawing player-friendly versions of the 5 pretty detailed maps! It is this convenience detriment that makes me reduce my final verdict for this one to 4.5 stars, rounded down; if you can get your hands on it, go for the Marshes of Malice book instead. If not, then this most assuredly makes for a delightfully icky and twisted challenge.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This module in the Quest of Doom-series clocks in at 21 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page advertisement, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 15 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

This review was moved up in my reviewing queue at the request of my patreon supporters.

This module is designated for characters of levels 1 – 3, and is an old-school adventure. This means that not all encounters are challenge-scaled, and that there’s a serious chance of PC death. I generally like old-school modules and making PCs sweat, so that per se is a plus for me.

I’d certainly recommend for adult parties, for it can become rather dark. Structurally, the module provides one of the most efficient bait and switches regarding themes that I have ever seen, and one that plenty of GMs will have an easy time pulling off due to the set-up and progression. On the downside, there is one scene that will potentially TPK the party if they think that fighting everything to the death is a smart choice. So yeah, some groups might require a bit of help/nudging from the GM there. As a whole, I’d recommend this module primarily to veteran groups. The module is much more efficient if the party has horses and/or animal companions.

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

… .. .

All right, only GMs around? Great!

So, with a variety of hooks, the premise seems old – a meteor streaks overhead, and the PCs are hired to examine/salvage the meteorite’s iron etc. If you expect some weird tentacle creature array coming up, the overland journey will strike you as super-weird, for the themes evoked are actually the Town Musicians of Bremen: The module begins with a very interesting, fairy-tale-esque angle, as all animals in the vicinity seem to slowly be increasing in Intelligence, learning to speak, etc.

This is the effect of the so-called Drift, and it is categorized in 5 stages that start as basic curiosity, and increase to full upright walking, use forelimbs properly, and communicate eloquently – this progression is based on time elapsed, and culminates at 11+ days; the drift powers are essentially spell-like abilities in anything but name (they should be classified as SPs, but I’m nitpicking there), and range in spell-level and uses from 1st to 3rd. Personally, I’d have preferred the drift powers to be codified in a way akin to corruptions, but that’s just a preference.

Anyhow, this fairy tale like scenario is played up in a fantastic manner: If the PCs have horses/animal companions, this awakening is even more impactful and rocks hard; it extends to the random encounters, and the different reactions of people to this change run a wide gamut: What about e.g. a bar with literally a sow as a mascot – who knows more than she lets on. Or what about that scene, where a family has been taken hostage by their cat and its allies? Said hostage situation is great, difficult and evocative. On the downside, the statblocks for the awakened sheep list “Feat, Feat, Feat” in their statblocks, which is a pretty obvious problem that should have been caught.

The turning point in themes from the mildly threatening to a further level happens when the PCs are faced with the heralds and servants of the Bear King: An owl with a broken wing, a chatty badger and a rabbit (called Stomper) with a taste for practical jokes make for remarkable companions to the dire elk Jostrocoles. PCs might become less, well, happy when the fanatic wolves arrive, and when the friendly badger is hurt by them – which is another chance to make friends here – friends they’ll need, for the bear king is a CR 7 stage 5 grizzly, and probably not something the PCs can beat. It’ll probably be up to the allies thus made to allow the PCs to escape captivity. The bear won’t let them just walk away. This is aforementioned thing that might be hard to see on a party of characters – they have to be okay with being captured and disarmed. Now, their badger ally will get them out, but captivity has its advantages: Here, the PCs will meet a belabra called Khotl, a strange jellyfish-like thing that can fill the PCs in regarding the mysterious phenomenon.

Khotl (who comes with roleplaying advice) tells the PCs about the grisly fate in store for their allies: The Drift is a horrible, infectious collective intelligence. The Drift will, at one point, force all infected beings to form a ginormous mass of flesh, using the bodies of its infected constituents as biomass as it levitates into space, where most beings will simply die, The driftmass will then proceed to another world, growing once more. All the weird hints granted from NPCs and companions suddenly make sense – and full-blown cosmic horror, uncaring, unfeeling, invades the module. I LOVE this. This bait and switch is FANTASTIC. Awakening to becoming a person, only to be subsumed and reduced to less than being an animal, being just biomass? That’s some seriously dark and horrifying concept.

In order to stop the Drift, the PCs have to infiltrate the driftmass, said strange meteor, and slay the core – so, provided the PCs managed to slip from the Bear King’s grasp, they have their work cut out for them.

The final part of the module, thus, is all about the PCs beating the insane things in the driftmass and slaying its core. The cartography for the driftmass lists numbers, though, while the module uses letters to denote the placement of adversaries. The map also lacks a scale and uses hexes, which implies a ginormous driftmass that makes no sense. This would be an issue, but not a crucial one.

HOWEVER. The Pathfinder conversion seriously goes off the deep end in the driftmass. The map lists 5 spots where creatures lurk; the module provides 2 creature-arrays: The first is a stage 4 gibbering mouther. The second would be a grick and a belabra (though the latter may have been intended to be a 3rd creature type – in such an instance, it’s missing the header designating it as such. These monsters surviving the last exodus are automatically hostile and super-dangerous. Thing is: Provided the scale of the driftmass is not huge, all creatures are pretty close to each other, and each of them is already BRUTAL and has TPK potential on its own. If the scale is indeed intended to be ginormous, this can be potentially done by lucky groups engaging in excellent tactics, provided they are rest-scumming AND optimized to the teeth.

This ends with the final boss, the driftcore. It’s a CR 10 (!!) stage 5 black pudding with at-will charm person, magic missile and sleep, 2/day darkness and web, and 2/day haste. It has more than 100 HP. With its reliable attack options, there is no way to not have even a clever group be TPK’d by this fellow. Even a level 3 party must be a) lucky and b) up to their A++++ game to beat this thing. Level 1 and 2? FORGET about it! If the driftmass, as I expect, is supposed to be dungeon-sized, this becomes even more ridiculous.

Now, I am a very vocal proponent for super-hard modules – and this module, up until the driftmass, was a well-wrought, deadly module. Tough, but fair. The driftmass? It becomes a horribly prickish save-or-suck fest; it’s unfair and just a mess. This can’t be done as written, at least not by even a decently optimized group at the suggested levels. Heck, even if you just kill off the PCs with magic missiles, you can kill them all reliably and easily. This is not a deadly module – it is beyond. I’d seriously consider the finale, depending on how you interpret the map situation, at best to be a solid challenge with a chance to triumph for level 4 – 5 parties. At the suggested levels, this is a guaranteed TPK.

Treasure for the insane finale? 8 pieces of gold, totaling 380 gp. No, I am not kidding.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are good on a formal level; on a rules-language level, I noticed a couple of hiccups, including ones that impact gameplay. Layout adheres to Frog God Games’ two-column b/w-standard, with nice b/w-artworks. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience. The cartography is nice, but lacks scale, and the second map, as noted above, sports discrepancies regarding it and the text. There are no player-friendly maps included, which is a bummer.

Steve Winter’s “Awakenings” is a module I genuinely LOVE. The atmosphere, the bait and switch, the genre-flipping, is executed in a way that is downright fantastic, 5 stars + seal level great.

… Unfortunately, the conversion to PFRPG by Dave Landry wrecks the module’s finale. Up to that point, the module is brutal, as it should be as a Quest of Doom; it requires a good GM, but it works. The finale? It comes apart, regardless of how you interpret the flawed map – which is another huge strike against the module.

I frankly wished I had gotten another version, for these two problems? They tarnish what otherwise would be an outstanding offering. The map-situation is a brutal issue; the finale being so incredibly over the top regarding its lethality is devastating. I tried making mythic characters GEARED to surviving the module – you can still kill those off pretty reliably if you play the adversaries even halfway smart. That’s not just a DOOM-level super-hard module – it’s unfair and simply provided for the wrong level-range.

Now, to be frank, I should rate this 2 stars, at the very highest. But the adventure? It’s just so awesome that it may warrant investing the time to fix the botched finale. Hence, my final verdict will be 3 stars, representing here an inspired and evocative, but also deeply flawed, broken book – if you’re willing to invest the time to rebalance significant parts of the module, then this’ll be one awesome scenario that your players will keep talking about. If you’re not willing to do that, then steer clear.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

The first of Raging Swan Press‘ “Eventures“ (not a typo) clocks in at 15 pages, 1 page front cover, 2 pages of advertisement, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 9 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

So, what is an eventure? Well, know how much or modern gaming is about tactics and combat? Now, I LOVE that, I really do. I enjoy brutal combats that are essentially numbers-puzzles. HOWEVER, this has become a very dominant paradigm, to the point where many modules consist solely of such challenges. But roleplaying is more. If you recall some truly remarkable sessions and things your players talk about, there’s a good chance that some NPCs and interactions are remembered fondly because they were NOT combat.

This is what an “eventure” is – a module or mini-event-booklet focusing on roleplaying, and NOT on combat. Okay, so what does this one offer? Well, context-wise, this is somewhat akin to a scripted mini-sandbox, and features the boardgame/mini-game “The Dragon and the Thief” – if you’re new to this, I’ve covered it before. The supplement does cover the rules and provides a proper playing board. It’s a fun change of pace. Location-wise, the “Orc’s Head” tavern is an adventurer watering hole situated in the amazing city of Languard in the Duchy of Ashlar, and since this eventure features essentially 4 fleshed-out nights, it can easily be spliced into other modules for a change of pace. Adapting the eventure to another city or setting is btw super easy – as long as you can fit a tavern in your game, you’re good. As the eventure focuses not on combat or the like, it is useful for a relatively broad range of levels – it best works at low and mid levels, as high level gameplay and the relatively gritty aesthetic clash slightly.

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

… .. .

All right, only GMs around? Great! A chunk of local limestone cut in the shape of the eponymous Orc’s Head clearly designates this place as the infamous tavern run by former adventurer Einar Salonen. Drink is cheap, music is loud, and people are partying. The common room is in the cellar (actually rather common around where I live) due to the original tavern burning down; guests lodge on the ground floor, Einar and staff on the upper floor. The supplement provides prices for food and drink and accommodations, and presents 5 nice hooks to get the characters to check out the place.

Which brings me to a HUGE plus: The tavern is fully mapped in a gorgeous, super-detailed manner – you can see the patterns on wood and tiles, individual crates, etc. The b/w map is STUNNING, and better yet, it’s a 100% player-friendly map!! The map is fantastic, and getting one sans labels etc., with grid and all? AMAZING. I mean, Raging Swan press usually has damn fine maps, but this one? Really nice.

But I digress: The book then proceeds to present customers via a d10 table supplemented by a whole paragraph of flavor contextualizing these individuals. There are no stats provided for them, but the classes referenced have been properly adjusted to old-school aesthetics. 5 members of staff are presented in a similar manner, and there is a pretty neat d20-generator that lets you determine mood, level of inebriation and activity of the individuals. A bit of a bummer: Raging Swan Press has this great Barroom Brawl supplement for PFRPG, and this version references it as the supplement to get to run such brawls. While said supplement is not exactly super-crunchy, its levels of intoxication would have been relatively easy to translate to old-school games – or some text-only guidance would have been nice. Bit of a bummer there.

So that’s the general set-up. From here, we move on to the four nights. These are presented in a nice manner: We get a list of 10 whispers and rumors, as well as 10 brief dynamic minor events to flesh out the proceedings – these sections apply globally. Beyond these, we get fixed events to make the night interesting. In night 1, we have, for example, a good teetotaler priest preach against the vices of gambling and drinking – which’ll potentially necessitate him being thrown out. We have a traumatized adventurer seeking to sell a mysterious dagger, and there’s a young girl, recently orphaned – she needs a roof over her head and food, and wants to stay off the streets, so finding a solution there (Einar will hire her) is the right thing to do.

Night 2 features three adventurers inviting the party to a game of The Dragon and the Thief, and otherwise is pretty quiet, which means that Einar has time for a conversation, if the PCs are so inclined. Night 3 is packed due to the performance of the troupe known as the Yellow Rose – fully depicted, and the 4 performances they put on actually all are adventurer-relevant and explained – kudos! A minor brawl may also break out. The fourth night features two adventuring parties, including one having their loot under the table. As before, these NPCs are explained and feature descriptive paragraphs, but no stats.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are very good on a formal and rules-language level. Layout adheres to Raging Swan Press’ elegant two-column b/w-standard, and the pdf sports nice b/w-artworks. The b/w-cartography of the Orc’s Head is phenomenal AND player-friendly – huge plus there! The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience, and in two versions – one optimized for the screen, and one for printing it.

Creighton Broadhurst’s first eventure is a SUPER-useful supplement. Getting a compelling, interesting tavern, with several fleshed out nights for the GM? That’s awesome, and nigh universal in its applicability. I adore this supplement as a person. And, well, this is the system neutral version – I can’t well complain about a lack of crunch in it, now, can I? As such, I consider this version to be a resounding success – 5 stars + seal of approval.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

The first of Raging Swan Press‘ “Eventures“ (not a typo) clocks in at 15 pages, 1 page front cover, 2 pages of advertisement, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 9 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

So, what is an eventure? Well, know how much or modern gaming is about tactics and combat? Now, I LOVE that, I really do. I enjoy brutal combats that are essentially numbers-puzzles. HOWEVER, this has become a very dominant paradigm, to the point where many modules consist solely of such challenges. But roleplaying is more. If you recall some truly remarkable sessions and things your players talk about, there’s a good chance that some NPCs and interactions are remembered fondly because they were NOT combat.

This is what an “eventure” is – a module or mini-event-booklet focusing on roleplaying, and NOT on combat. Okay, so what does this one offer? Well, context-wise, this is somewhat akin to a scripted mini-sandbox, and features the boardgame/mini-game “The Dragon and the Thief” – if you’re new to this, I’ve covered it before. The supplement does cover the rules and provides a proper playing board. It’s a fun change of pace. Location-wise, the “Orc’s Head” tavern is an adventurer watering hole situated in the amazing city of Languard in the Duchy of Ashlar, and since this eventure features essentially 4 fleshed-out nights, it can easily be spliced into other modules for a change of pace. Adapting the eventure to another city or setting is btw super easy – as long as you can fit a tavern in your game, you’re good. As the eventure focuses not on combat or the like, it is useful for a relatively broad range of levels – it best works at low and mid levels, as high level gameplay and the relatively gritty aesthetic clash slightly.

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

… .. .

All right, only GMs around? Great! A chunk of local limestone cut in the shape of the eponymous Orc’s Head clearly designates this place as the infamous tavern run by former adventurer Einar Salonen. Drink is cheap, music is loud, and people are partying. The common room is in the cellar (actually rather common around where I live) due to the original tavern burning down; guests lodge on the ground floor, Einar and staff on the upper floor. The supplement provides prices for food and drink and accommodations, and presents 5 nice hooks to get the characters to check out the place.

Which brings me to a HUGE plus: The tavern is fully mapped in a gorgeous, super-detailed manner – you can see the patterns on wood and tiles, individual crates, etc. The b/w map is STUNNING, and better yet, it’s a 100% player-friendly map!! The map is fantastic, and getting one sans labels etc., with grid and all? AMAZING. I mean, Raging Swan press usually has damn fine maps, but this one? Really nice.

But I digress: The book then proceeds to present customers via a d10 table supplemented by a whole paragraph of flavor contextualizing these individuals. There are no stats provided for them, instead referencing 5e’s default NPC statblocks. 5 members of staff are presented in a similar manner, and there is a pretty neat d20-generator that lets you determine mood, level of inebriation and activity of the individuals. A bit of a bummer: Raging Swan Press has this great Barroom Brawl supplement for PFRPG, and this version references it as the supplement to get to run such brawls. While said supplement is not exactly super-crunchy, its levels of intoxication don’t work that well for 5e. Bit of a bummer there.

So that’s the general set-up. From here, we move on to the four nights. These are presented in a nice manner: We get a list of 10 whispers and rumors, as well as 10 brief dynamic minor events to flesh out the proceedings – these sections apply globally. Beyond these, we get fixed events to make the night interesting. In night 1, we have, for example, a good teetotaler priest preach against the vices of gambling and drinking – which’ll potentially necessitate him being thrown out. We have a traumatized adventurer seeking to sell a mysterious dagger, and there’s a young girl, recently orphaned – she needs a roof over her head and food, and wants to stay off the streets, so finding a solution there (Einar will hire her) is the right thing to do.

Night 2 features three adventurers inviting the party to a game of The Dragon and the Thief, and otherwise is pretty quiet, which means that Einar has time for a conversation, if the PCs are so inclined. Night 3 is packed due to the performance of the troupe known as the Yellow Rose – fully depicted, and the 4 performances they put on actually all are adventurer-relevant and explained – kudos! A minor brawl may also break out. The fourth night features two adventuring parties, including one having their loot under the table. As before, these NPCs are explained and feature descriptive paragraphs, but no stats.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are very good on a formal and rules-language level. Layout adheres to Raging Swan Press’ elegant two-column b/w-standard, and the pdf sports nice b/w-artworks. The b/w-cartography of the Orc’s Head is phenomenal AND player-friendly – huge plus there! The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience, and in two versions – one optimized for the screen, and one for printing it.

Creighton Broadhurst’s first eventure is a SUPER-useful supplement. Getting a compelling, interesting tavern, with several fleshed out nights for the GM? That’s awesome, and nigh universal in its applicability. I adore this supplement as a person. As a reviewer, there is but one real complaint I have: The supplement is essentially system neutral. There is not a single DC for social skills, hearing rumors or the like herein. The reference to a supplement for the wrong system also bothered me – a quick sidebar with rules for 5e wouldn’t have taken up much space. That being said, this is still an excellent, super-useful supplement, which is why my final verdict will clock in at 4.5 stars, but rounded down for this iteration.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

The first of Raging Swan Press‘ “Eventures“ (not a typo) clocks in at 15 pages, 1 page front cover, 2 pages of advertisement, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 9 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

So, what is an eventure? Well, know how much or modern gaming is about tactics and combat? Now, I LOVE that, I really do. I enjoy brutal combats that are essentially numbers-puzzles. HOWEVER, this has become a very dominant paradigm, to the point where many modules consist solely of such challenges. But roleplaying is more. If you recall some truly remarkable sessions and things your players talk about, there’s a good chance that some NPCs and interactions are remembered fondly because they were NOT combat.

This is what an “eventure” is – a module or mini-event-booklet focusing on roleplaying, and NOT on combat. Okay, so what does this one offer? Well, context-wise, this is somewhat akin to a scripted mini-sandbox, and features the boardgame/mini-game “The Dragon and the Thief” – if you’re new to this, I’ve covered it before. The supplement does cover the rules and provides a proper playing board. It’s a fun change of pace. Location-wise, the “Orc’s Head” tavern is an adventurer watering hole situated in the amazing city of Languard in the Duchy of Ashlar, and since this eventure features essentially 4 fleshed-out nights, it can easily be spliced into other modules for a change of pace. Adapting the eventure to another city or setting is btw super easy – as long as you can fit a tavern in your game, you’re good. As the eventure focuses not on combat or the like, it is useful for a relatively broad range of levels – it best works at low and mid levels, as high level gameplay and the relatively gritty aesthetic clash slightly.

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

… .. .

All right, only GMs around? Great! A chunk of local limestone cut in the shape of the eponymous Orc’s Head clearly designates this place as the infamous tavern run by former adventurer Einar Salonen. Drink is cheap, music is loud, and people are partying. The common room is in the cellar (actually rather common around where I live) due to the original tavern burning down; guests lodge on the ground floor, Einar and staff on the upper floor. The supplement provides prices for food and drink and accommodations, and presents 5 nice hooks to get the characters to check out the place.

Which brings me to a HUGE plus: The tavern is fully mapped in a gorgeous, super-detailed manner – you can see the patterns on wood and tiles, individual crates, etc. The b/w map is STUNNING, and better yet, it’s a 100% player-friendly map!! The map is fantastic, and getting one sans labels etc., with grid and all? AMAZING. I mean, Raging Swan press usually has damn fine maps, but this one? Really nice.

But I digress: The book then proceeds to present customers via a d10 table supplemented by a whole paragraph of flavor contextualizing these individuals. There are no stats provided for them. 5 members of staff are presented in a similar manner, and there is a pretty neat d20-generator that lets you determine mood, level of inebriation and activity of the individuals. If your PCs do look for a brawl, I’d recommend Raging Swan press’ amazing Barroom Brawl-supplement – and so does the pdf.

So that’s the general set-up. From here, we move on to the four nights. These are presented in a nice manner: We get a list of 10 whispers and rumors, as well as 10 brief dynamic minor events to flesh out the proceedings – these sections apply globally. Beyond these, we get fixed events to make the night interesting. In night 1, we have, for example, a good teetotaler priest preach against the vices of gambling and drinking – which’ll potentially necessitate him being thrown out. We have a traumatized adventurer seeking to sell a mysterious dagger, and there’s a young girl, recently orphaned – she needs a roof over her head and food, and wants to stay off the streets, so finding a solution there (Einar will hire her) is the right thing to do.

Night 2 features three adventurers inviting the party to a game of The Dragon and the Thief, and otherwise is pretty quiet, which means that Einar has time for a conversation, if the PCs are so inclined. Night 3 is packed due to the performance of the troupe known as the Yellow Rose – fully depicted, and the 4 performances they put on actually all are adventurer-relevant and explained – kudos! A minor brawl may also break out. The fourth night features two adventuring parties, including one having their loot under the table. As before, these NPCs are explained and feature descriptive paragraphs, but no stats.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are very good on a formal and rules-language level. Layout adheres to Raging Swan Press’ elegant two-column b/w-standard, and the pdf sports nice b/w-artworks. The b/w-cartography of the Orc’s Head is phenomenal AND player-friendly – huge plus there! The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience, and in two versions – one optimized for the screen, and one for printing it.

Creighton Broadhurst’s first eventure is a SUPER-useful supplement. Getting a compelling, interesting tavern, with several fleshed out nights for the GM? That’s awesome, and nigh universal in its applicability. I adore this supplement as a person. As a reviewer, there is but one real complaint I have: The supplement is essentially system neutral. There is not a single DC for social skills, hearing rumors or the like herein. And for a supplement designated as the PFRPG-version? Somewhat disappointing.

That being said, this is still an excellent, super-useful supplement, which is why my final verdict will clock in at 5 stars, just short of my seal of approval.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This module clocks in at 30 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, 2 pages of editorial, 2 pages of advertisement, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 22 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

It should be noted that these page-numbers are provided for the single page version – there is a double-page spread version (better for e-readers etc.) also included.

Okay, so, this module is very different from my usual fare; it’s not just a supplement provided for the context of Rising Phoenix’ Scarthey setting – it’s actually a module designed to work as a GM-less solo-adventure for a 1st level fighter or cleric. It can also be run as a regular 1-on-1-scenario, but the primary presentation seems to be one intended for GM-less solo-play.

The module mentions the Stone of Ashirai – a mighty, dark artifact that can influence the difficulty of the module, providing one of 4 effects – this provides some replay value, and you choose one or roll for one before the module actually starts. Two are particularly brutal: One of the effects has vanquished foes potentially return to unlife on an 18+ on a d20, and the other makes you set aside a d20, with the 20 facing up. When an enemy rolls, they use the value facing up, and detract 1 from the value; when you defeat a creature, the value increases by +1, up to the maximum of 20.

For a further difficulty-increase, you can add duskin goblins as allies to the primary antagonists – the process of doing so is randomized, and the goblins’ stats are decent – while I noticed a few minor snafus (rules and formatting – HP are off by one, and feature headers are only bold, not bolded and in italics), you can use these. Formatting for other creatures tends to be off as well. Apart from that, DCs tend to clock in at around 10, with one instance missing the DCs – that one is called out in the errata notepad file, but as per my policy, only properly updated pdfs are taken into account. (As an aside: Why this policy? Because otherwise, publishers can point towards obscure homepages, form threads etc. and claim errata – and that is not customer-friendly.)

These aforementioned gobos do come with morale, which is a nice underutilized touch, imho. (One of the artifact’s effects can add a change here.)

The module then follows essentially a choose your own adventure-book style formula – we get read-aloud text, and after that some choices, with notes to go to other numbered encounters.

Now, unlike in my usual reviews, I will not talk about the plot or the like here – after all, I’d be spoiling the module for the GM-less solo-players that are the primary demographic. Testing the module, I should note that this is a pretty deadly beast – there are a couple of story-game-overs (traps’ll generally just kill you sans save), and the module sometimes uses skill checks where I’d have expected a saving throw – for example when a massive block of stone squishes you. After multiple failures to beat the module, I can discern the primary goal to succeed here: there is one encounter that can net you an uncommon ad pretty cool ally. This is perhaps the most crucial encounter to get, as it changes the action economy slant in the encounters with multiple enemies. I strongly suggest making your character hardy in order to avoid being one-shot by encounters with multiple enemies.

Don’t get me wrong – this’ll still be tough, but once you’ve found this one, you’ll be on track to beating this. Good luck!

Conclusions: Editing is pretty good on a formal level; on a rules-language level, I noticed a couple of snafus, but nothing to wreck the pdf. Formatting in particular deviates quite a bit from 5e’s default conventions. Layout is gorgeous and uses a quasi-Egyptian full-color background, with colored scarabs at the top and bottom. Artworks are pretty copious, and blend public domain and high-quality full-color pieces of artwork. This is a beautiful book. Big plus: While the book has no bookmarks, it does have internal hyperlinking – which is actually better for books like this: You’re not SPOILED by accident if you exert some discipline. But know what SUCKS? You can’t highlight texts in this pdf, or copy it. This becomes an issue when using the goblins for added difficulty. While usually, the encounters simply provide their stats where needed, the goblin stats are in the beginning, and you can’t quickly jump to those – having a single bookmark for that stat, or a “go to goblin/jump back”-button would have been nice. Or, you know, just having the damn common courtesy of being able to just copy the text from the pdf, like pretty much 99.9% of pdfs out there.

Rodney Sloan’s “Death Queen & the Life Stone” is an unpretentious, challenging, choose your own adventure style book using 5e; it’s deadly and not something you’ll beat at first try, and that’s a good thing. For the most part, the story-game-overs for bad choices seemed fair to me, though the very high sudden death chances for encounters with multiple enemies irked me slightly. As noted before, some of these might have warranted an escape DC or saving throw to avoid, but that may be me trying to hearken too close to 5e’s conventions. The narrative won’t necessarily blow you away, but the scenario per se is solid and fun.

So yeah, all in all, I consider this to be a pretty neat, if not perfect offering. Now, I’d usually round up from my final verdict. But not being able to highlight text? That’s really aggravating. My final verdict will hence be 3.5 stars, rounded down.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This module clocks in at 24 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page advertisement, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 18 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

This review was moved up in my reviewing queue at the request of my patreon supporters.

“Cave of Iron” is an old-school module intended for characters level 1st to 3rd – a well-rounded party of 6 is recommended, and at 1st level, this is a VERY deadly module. It should be noted that the module requires that the GM pulls off something that every experienced player will be weary of; otherwise, it might well end before the intended finale, so yeah – this is certainly a module for experienced GMs. And parties. Oh boy, this is capital letters DOOM. Are you tired of your cocky, optimized PCs? Well, the final region has 10 minute intervals for random encounters, and these encounters can include 6 CR 4 creatures, and even one encounter with 14 CR 1, 8 CR 2, and one CR 6 (!!) critters – while one of the planned encounters lists this as not necessarily an IMMEDIATELY hostile one (they do turn hostile if the party dawdles), parties that think they can murder-hobo through this with their 3133T-murderhoboing builds will die horribly. It should also be noted that, while the numbers of critters encountered make this intent clear, the like is not spelled out in the random encounters section, so yeah – experienced GMs definitely required. The party has no chance of survival if they can’t level mid-adventure, and imho, even level 3 parties may well be hard-pressed to survive this one. You have been warned.

The module features read-aloud text, as well as b/w-maps for a section of wilderness and an adventure-location; the latter is aesthetically really pleasing and nice, but both maps come without player-friendly versions.

The primary antagonist comes with very rudimentary and pretty flawed depictions of making characters of that type; I strongly suggest ignoring the paragraph. Apart from the primary antagonist, we have two new monsters here – as a minor nitpick, an ability called “thought onslaught” should most definitely be codified as mind-affecting, as it does cause untyped damage. Another creature’s CMD is off by one, missing its special size modifier.

The module is set in the Keston province in the Lost Lands campaign setting, but is pretty easy to adapt to other settings. The adventure starts off in Hillfort, and nomen est omen here. 12 years ago, valuable metals were found in the hills in the vicinity, and the Hardshale Mine thrived – every month, a wagon train carries supplies to the mine, and returns laden with iron and miners, with the trip usually taking less than a week. It’s been 3 weeks and the last supply train hasn’t returned, and the riders that were dispatched when the wagons were 4 days overdue haven’t returned either, and more goblins than usual have been sighted – enter the adventurers!

To provide more details, I’ll need to go into SPOILER-territory. Potential players should jump ahead to the conclusion.

… .. .

All right, only GMs around? Great! So, the first section of the module deals with the road to Hardhsale Mine after the short briefing. If the PCs are smart, they’ll take a friendly NPC along for the rid: A kind rogue can certainly help; the commoner minor, who is also an alcoholic, though? Less useful. En route, the PCs get to face several goblins (potentially gaining some intel regarding the plant monsters, like Jupiter bloodsuckers, which the PCs can also find.

And then comes the hard sell I mentioned, which really requires serious GM mojo to pull off – The PCs meet Pezzi Zakii, a friendly shroom-humanoid, who professes to be a kind being. Ideally, the shroom accompanies the PCs as a funny sidekick, “saving” them with his “shroom powers” over his own plant creatures. Conversation primers are also provided, and this’d be a more effective angle if, well, if shrooms were not one of the most classic OSR-villains ever. If your players played through either Expeditious Retreat press’ shroom modules or Matthew J. Finch’s fantastic Demonspore, forget about selling this one to your party. The module does not hinge on the party falling for Pezzi, but becomes more fun if they do. Here’s an issue: “It is vital, however, that characters don’t kill Zakii on the road.” While the shroom has 35 HP, making that unlikely, it’s certainly within the range of things that the party can pull off. On the plus-side, invisibility and sleep as prepared spells do make for a pretty likely chance to escape. So yeah, not penalizing the module for this one, even though I really suggest GMs taking some serious time to think on how to sell this.

Why? Because the module does actually a really nice job at making Pezzi seem likable, and the shroom, until recently isolated from the surface world, has a good reason to have free-willed adventurers around, wanting them to demonstrate how e.g. smelting iron works, etc. Still, some designated troubleshooting sections most assuredly would have been helpful here. The Hardhsale Mine, once the party arrives there, is the highlight of the module: Lavishly-mapped, the place features a ton of feeblemind-ed miners, deadly plant creatures (including a cool reskin of the assassin vine – the flowershroud), and with the magic-dampening witch grass hazard, the small mining settlement is atmospheric, dangerous and thoroughly creepy.

Of course, the PCs will need to go down into the Hardshale Mine – the mine has three levels, with the majority of the action dealing with the third level, where the mine managed to break through into the shroom’s habitat, thus initiating the catastrophe…provided the party isn’t TPK’d. A planned encounter deals with 5 CR 4 and one CR 5 enemy….which can’t RAW be bypassed. Hope your group is super-paranoid and good at hit and run…The final encounter with Pezzi Zakki and its minions btw. add +2 advanced violet fungi on round 1, 5 mandragoras (CR 4) and a green brain (CR 5) on round 2, a CR 3 fungoid on round three, and all surviving vegepygmies from a camp on round 5. These vegepygmies, btw.? That’s the 14 CR 1, 8 CR 2, and one CR 6 creature. Plus, you know, the CR 5 BBEG. If the PCs have not leveled by then, they will be wiped out at the very latest here.

Now, there is a room for super-deadly modules like this one; heck, I prefer hard modules. But this one is insanely brutal, and its level-range is hard to sell. I can’t see a level 1 party beating this; not even really overpowered groups. Level 2 will also be borderline – so yeah, wrong level-range.

But there is one aspect that really tanks the module for me. That final subterranean area, which constitutes more than half of the keyed encounters? Well, guess what’s missing its frickin’ map? YEP. The entire subterranean finale is missing it’s §$%&$§-map! And no, this is not intentional – the text references hexes, and the module certainly doesn’t waste time talking about the relation of encounter areas sans map, making it very obvious that a map should be here…but isn’t. How in all the 9 hells could that happen???

Conclusion: Editing and formatting re good on a formal and rules-language level. Layout adheres to Frog God Games’ two-column b/w-standard, and the pdf sports some nice artworks in b/w. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience. The cartography for the surface of Hardshale Mine is awesome and b/w – but that doesn’t make up for a) the lack of player-friendly maps (which Frog God Games usually provided) and b) THE FIRCKIN MISSING MAP for the region containing half of the keyed encounters!!

Man, Steve Winter’s scenario deserved better.

The module has not one, but two bad strikes against it: 1) The lack of player-friendly maps is disappointing; the missing map is inexcusable. 2) Dave Landry’s PFRPG conversion is insanely-brutal. I get the whole DOOM part of Quests of Doom; heck, I’ve been a fan of the super-brutal modules. But this one? You can throw mythic characters at this and watch them die. The level-range is not appropriate, and I’d seriously not throw this at a party below 3rd level; heck, most parties at 4th level would still consider this to be HARD if the GM plays it halfway smart. Unless you’re dealing with a super-optimized group, this might still TPK level 4 parties!

Both of these would be serious strikes on their own; the latter perhaps more excusable than the former; but in combination? In combination, they tank this module, and while the adventure, if run as intended as opposed to as provided, is a solid yarn, it isn’t outstanding, or novel enough to make up for these issues. My final verdict can’t exceed 1.5 stars, rounded up due to in dubio pro reo.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This installment of the Starfarer’s Codex-series clocks in at 8 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 2 pages of advertisement, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 3 pages devoted to new gear boosts, so what do we get?

Well, more than 30 new gear boosts, and these tend to offer some interesting options. We have, for example, Corpsman, which allows you to either heal the lower of half your ranks in medicine (not properly capitalized) or the item used’s item level in HP when patching up another creature. And before you ask, this does have a caveat that prevents spamming it. Devil dog helps you deal with fear-based condition when using a holographic sashimono. EPIC: DUCT TAPE! Tape two ranged weapons with Bulk 2 or less together, allowing you to quickly switch between them. And yep others can use it, but lacking your mastery of duct tape, they suffer some serious drawbacks. What about using fire extinguishers to end burn as a move action? And yes, does take larger creatures into account. Enhanced DCs for entangling weapons slightly better Dexterity bonus when lightly armored is also cool, as is the one that lets you use a camouflage membrane in the attuned biome sans cover or concealment – provided you’re far enough away from the creatures you try to hide from.

On the downside, there are two once per combat abilities – combat is an arbitrarily-defined segment of time; while using a shield generator once per combat as a move action, or granting allies a bonus when using an aurora or bright weapon for the first time in combat are both balance-wise totally okay, this still irked me on a rules-aesthetic level. As far as I know, only one of the captain actions in SFRPG’s starship combat has this per combat angle, and it irked me there as well. Tying this to 10-minute rests would have been a bit more elegant, imho.

That being said: A boost enhancer and awesome grappler moves (bionic commando, anyone?) can also be found; better restraining of targets, over- and undersized weapon use is covered (mainly for utility – oversized weapons don’t increase their damage RAW in SFRPG, so it’s about using your enemy’s weaponry), and we get an increase of the power of blocks. Increased penetration, no action extending, stabilizing or collapsing of bipods on solid surfaces…some cool stuff here. Extending blasts to twice the weapon’s range increment is potentially very strong and one I’d advise caution with. Shoot and scoot is also pretty potent, allowing you to shoot with a sniper rifle at the extended range and move as a full action afterwards. These latter two ones are probably the only ones herein where I’d be careful. They are not problematic per se, mind you – they just let you do really nasty things with the right build. Aiming through sights as a swift action is also covered.

Quicker use of motion detectors, treating all small arms as quick reload weapons, disarming weapons and tossing them aside – some neat ones here. Controlled advances while in defense and heavily armored…and what about the option to make opportunity attacks with unwieldy weapons, even though you already attacked? I also really liked the means to fire automatic weapons with less ammo expenditure, but at the cost of only hitting a maximum of 5 targets.

Cool: The 7th-level boost for consuming twice the ammunition when firing a line weapon to enhance its breadth to 10 ft. At this level, we btw. also have a gearboost for a bonus to attack with starship weapons.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are good on a formal and rules-language level – I noticed a few typos and some minor niggles, but nothing serious. Layout adheres to the series’ two-column full-color standard with a nice artwork. The pdf has a bookmark for the editorial, in spite of its brevity.

Owen K.C. Stephens really knows what he’s doing, and it shows: The gear boosts presented here are potent, yes, but the impressive thing is that they make sense in some way – they are tied to the gear in question. There is never this disjoint, and all feel like they really represent expertise with the respective items. Now, some of the boosts are pretty situational, and I do have a few niggles here and there. However, the supplement is inexpensive, and offers some seriously cool options that brought a smile to my face – and these offset my niggles regarding this pdf. As such, my final verdict will round up from 4.5 stars – soldier fans should definitely take a look.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This module clocks in at 31 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page advertisement, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 25 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

This review was moved up in my reviewing queue as part of a series of requests by my patreon supporters.

So, “The Hunter’s Game” sounds familiar? Well, the module was originally penned as part of the criminally underrated series of environmental sourcebooks penned by Tom Knauss. To be more precise, this module originally was released as one of 3 modules in the “Marshes of Malice” swamp sourcebook, which I also own. Unlike the modules in “Mountains of Madness”, the adventures featured in “Marshes of Malice” do not constitute a mini-AP of sorts, which is good news for standalone presentations like this one.

Anyhow, “The Hunter’s Game” is an old-school module, and as such, it is not necessarily easy – careless player characters will die – horribly. There is one particular encounter that can be rather brutal. The adventure is penned for a 4th-level party, and I’d suggest 6 PCs, which should form a coherent unit with the expected combat capabilities. You don’t need to be super-optimized to beat this, but you need to be competent at what you’re doing.

The module is steeped pretty deeply in the lore of the Lost Lands-campaign setting, but all the background is easy enough to ignore, should you choose to go that route. The background lore sports some minor, Easter egg-like connections to the classic Glades of Death hardcover for 3.X (the proto-environment hardcover book, if you will), as well as to the Death in Dyrgalas-adventure featured in the first Quests of Doom hardcover. For lorehounds of the Lost Lands and parties that have been playing these modules for a while, that’s certainly a nice touch. If that’s not your cup of tea, then you can ignore much of the very detailed background story when you adapt this to your setting, and do so without running into issues. The module sports some readaloud text, but not to an excessive degree – this is definitely a module suited for experienced GMs, and one that should be properly prepared. On the plus-side, and that’s a BIG plus as far as I’m concerned, the module does offer troubleshooting advice for PCs looking to hire NPCs for their magic capabilities, etc.

The module comes with regional and local maps in b/w, as well as a local map – which is one of the big downers of this stand-alone version of the module. You see, in the original iteration, there were player-friendly versions of all maps provided. These are nowhere to be found. Worse, the final part of the module has the PCs happen upon a crude map handout. With a player-friendly map, they then could explore the locality, and find the relevant places. This handout version of the map has been cut – though references to it are still very much in the module’s text. That’s a huge downer, as far as I’m concerned, because it was what made the final section of the module interesting. On the plus side, the random encounter section has been cut down – the original featured cross-references to Marshes of Malice’s copious environmental hazards, which includes poison sumacs, microorganisms, etc. – these references have been cut, so no dead “links” here. On the downside, these aspects, well, have been cut, which takes away some of the really cool and immersive environmental features.

That being said, the adventure is pretty uncommon, in that it essentially is a mystery/investigation scenario that’s not set in a city, but rather in a pretty unique and novel environment. It is also well-researched regarding animals and biome. It should be noted that I strongly suggest this module for veteran players – solving the adventure becomes significantly more likely if the PCs know what they’re doing and engage in proper legwork. Unlike many published modules, this one does assume a degree of competence and intelligence on parts of the players, which is a big plus in my book.

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

… .. . The Answin Lodge is a success story: Erected by a naturalist, it allows wealthy visitors to the Dyrgalas Fens to learn about the unique fauna, and the naturalist Brock Answin is certainly making a case for crocodiles; heck, he is allied with lizardfolk, making him a pretty positive figure as a whole…and still, people vanish. And the disappearances are accumulating – so hopefully, the PCs are doing their legwork before embarking on the journey to the Lodge….for, at the start, the PCs can question former guests of the Lodge and engage in some serious detective work by cross-referencing statements. Indeed, since the modus operandi of the adversaries includes the use of magic, that aspect is covered as well and hinted at. I really loved how this entire section sets up the rest of the module.

And the investigation, provided the PCs make it to the Lodge, is similarly interesting: Brock (who has btw. a crocodile animal companion) and his crew are probably prime suspects at this point, but the matter of the truth is that he’s innocent; indeed, his operation has been compromised in a rather interesting fashion: Clever players will notice a discrepancy between the numbers of crocodiles featured, and indeed – that’s the core of the issue. One of the lizardfolk retainers (who are not working here as long as Brock claims they do) is pretty devious and has been spreading the were-crocodile strain of lycanthropy, which Brock has resisted so far. In essence, a group of villains has co-opted Brock’s operation as a front for subtle abductions of individuals, which are then sold off to several really unpleasant parties in the Dyrgalas!

The combination of the perpetrators (who have pretty neat builds) is the aforementioned steep spike in challenge – if the party is ambushed by the entire cadre of foes, they’ll have a VERY brutal combat on their hands. But then again, if that happens, they’ll have botched the investigation – reap what you sow…so yeah, the investigation, with the colorful people at the Lodge (which is fully mapped), tours etc. – it all comes together in a genuinely cool and fun investigation.

In the aftermath of the attack, provided the PCs survived the exceedingly dangerous villains, they’ll have an impromptu, crude map, which they then use to track down the green hag Grizelda, the Cyclops Bruseus, and two harpy sisters, hopefully rescuing as many innocents as possible. The fun aspect of this extended denouement, at one point, was using the handout and the player-friendly map while exploring the swamp to find these targets – and this aspect is pretty much completely lost in this stand-alone iteration, as both handout and player-friendly map are missing.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are very good on a formal and rules-language level, though the references to the cut handout sting. Layout adheres to Frog God Games’ printer-friendly two-column b/w-standard, and the pdf comes with nice original artworks in b/w as well as bookmarks. The map-situation is a big downer: The original hardcover featured player-friendly versions of all maps of the adventure, and their loss is a pretty big downside in this iteration. Moreover, the cut handout, in conjunction with the loss of said maps deprives the final section of what made it unique and fun.

Tom Knauss’ “the Hunter’s Game” deserved better than what it got here; its original iteration was an impressive adventure that played really well and made great use of the swamp-rules. Losing the hazards and the like is a minor blemish, but wouldn’t have had a serious impact on my verdict. However, the fact that the handout, and as such, the thing that made the finale rewarding and unique, has been cut? That’s a HUGE bummer and makes the finale feel less like a turning of the tables, and more like busy-work. In short: The finale loses most of its impact and consequently becomes a low-key series of planned encounters sans the novel framing.

And this is a pity, for this is per se an excellent adventure – if you can get your hands on Marshes of Malice, go for that version; it’s pretty much a 5 star + seal adventure; this stand-alone iteration, though, not only loses the minor components you’d expect it to, the finale is severely compromised in how well it works. As such, it should be taken as testament to how much I like the module per se that my final verdict for this stand-alone version still clocks in at 3.5 stars, but I can’t bring myself to rounding up.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This supplement is essentially an experimental one-page adventure with supplemental material on the back – it comes in two iterations, one with a black background, and one with a white background that’s more printer-friendly. The two versions are not identical in content, though – both have different “back covers”/second pages – think of this as 3 pages of content.

Now, first things first: This is a horror adventure, ages 18+, and prominently features themes of suicide. If the “existential ennui”-header and the “the Gardens of Proserpine”-quote at the top weren’t ample clue, the module also explicitly provides another warning. Two thumbs up for that.

Anyhow, the module works best as a kind of village backdrop and metaplot adventure beyond others – it is surprisingly effective when interspersed into a campaign making liberal use of Raging Swan Press’ Village Backdrop-series. Just saying… While a surprisingly solid b/w-map is presented, it doesn’t have a scale or the like and is pretty small, providing essentially just a theater-of-the-mind style context for you.

The module sports no stats, but actually doesn’t need them, because it does something pretty clever (and fun). The version with the black background sports an experimental poem by Lauren Dove (“Ash Cycle”; If you like bleak and experimental poetry, you might well enjoy this. To provide a brief excerpt:

“Ash black Punkwood soot, still Smoking, Burned stuck onto his Thumb Pressed into your tongue The choking taste He watches, Watches you writhe …” No, I enjoy edgelord/lady-ish poetry and beat-aesthetics, so I appreciated this. It’s highly subjective, though.

What’s not subjective is the second page of the printables-page. But in order to discuss it, I need to go into SPOILERS. Potential players should jump ahead to the conclusion. … .. .

Only referees around? Great! So, Furthest farthing is a little, bucolic thorp, beset by crippling melancholy. The 12 poor inhabitants (all characterized with a brief sentence or two) will all succumb to suicide, due to the malign influence of a black star that feel, fist-sized, near the pool. Whenever a day passes, there is a 10% chance of a target succumbing to severely depression. Each NPC has 1 – 3 checkmarks before existence wears them down and they succumb. The only long-term solution for this mysterious affliction? Well, turns out that a giant, immobile and very hungry frog is guarding it – and the closer you get to it, the more it grows, allowing you to enter.

Inside, the energy conduits inside must be severed, but are guarded by The Thing With The Ten tentacles….which can’t be slain. You see, page two of the printable-pdf is actually a mini-game handout. The Ten Tentacle Thing can attack through the Black Star’s interior,, and you print out that page: On it, you can see the tentacles, and make a kind of border around with a few cuts. Then you roll inside of this handout, and when you hit a tentacle and cause enough damage (or just hit at all – this is system neutral), you sever the tentacle at that part, allowing you to easily mark it off. It’s a fun, unpretentious idea to make the obligatory tentacle-thing fight in many a weird fantasy/horror module more fun.

As an aside: If the above seemed weird to you, I have a picture of the assembled handout on my homepage. I SUCK big time at anything arts-and-crafts-related, and, well, even I managed to assemble it. Feel free to laugh and point fingers at me. ;)

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are good for an indie production. Layout adheres to a 3-column vertical standard, with the printable pdf being sufficiently printer-friendly. The pdfs have no bookmarks, but need none at this length. It’d have been nice to get a version of the map sans labels, or for VTT-sized.

Evey Lockhart’s little excursion to Furthest farthing is a nice offering: It isn’t a mind-blowing revelation or anything, but it is experimental without compromising immediate table-use. You can run this with 5 minutes of prep-work, if you so choose. The mini-game reminded me of dungeon fighter, which I certainly appreciated. While system neutral and probably intended for OSR-ish contexts, it’s also sufficiently easy to adapt to more complex games: With brief statting of the antagonists, using the module for 5e or PFRPG is pretty simple – extra points if you use Everybody Games’ fantastic “Microsized Adventures” for a PFRPG-version…but that’s just a recommendation.

All in all, this is surprisingly and refreshingly unpretentious for a module that features poetry; it is bleak and dark, but also rewarding. Oh, and it’s PWYW. And for that? Seriously worth a tip! As such, my final verdict will be 3.5 stars, rounded up.

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This module clocks in at 29 pages (laid out in 6’’ by 9’’/A5), already not accounting for front cover, editorial, etc.

This review was moved up in my reviewing queue at the indirect request of my patreon supporters  - more on that below. My review is based on the softcover version, which is a saddle-stitched softcover with pretty solid and thick paper – particularly the covers are more sturdy than I expected from a ‘zine. Why call this ‘zine? Because it is the unnumbered eighth installment of the Undercroft-‘zine.

This module is intended for level 1 – 3 characters (I’d recommend 4-6 characters and a moderately well-rounded party; particularly a specialist/thief should be included), and is a surprisingly fair offering. PCs reap what they’ve sown, and while death is very much possible, it feels fair. The module has no read-aloud text, and should indeed be carefully prepared by the referee, as it’s a dense module that will most likely happen during a single evening in- and out-game. The module offers only one map, for one of the main adventuring complexes, and no unlabeled player-friendly map is provided for it. The map is b/w and is rather detailed, sports a grid, but no scale noted. If you run this, I’d suggest preparing a map for an Inn, as well as one for a shed. Considering the surprising amount of moving parts and things to interact with, I’d recommend this to the experienced referee.

The module uses bolded red text to allow for the quicker parsing of information (good); magic item formatting is different from the standard, but consistent with how The Undercroft has formatted magic items, and is pretty precise. As is the tradition with magic items in LotFP, magic items are DANGEROUS. The supplement includes a single new nasty save-or-suck spell that I’d generally recommend not fall in the PCs hands, but then again, this module was written for Lamentations of the Flame Princess (LotFP), so very potent low-level magic-user spells are less uncommon. Plus: The referee can relatively easily eliminate this aspect.

This module is almost absurdist in its horror and has a couple of really dark themes, so if horror themes generally offend you, steer clear. This can be heart-rending and pretty brutal; it can also be characterized as absurd and funny in a really dark way, the latter aspects blending with horror into this utterly unique amalgamation.

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

…

..

.

Stilton is an utterly unremarkable village thorp that once was famous for its cheese. Now, 1730, it suddenly is rising to prominence once more, with everybody craving that delicious Stilton Blue, courtesy of one Cooper Thornhill. The party is hired by the man’s sister-in-law, who is played for laughs as a contact: She is an unpleasant woman, badgers her husband, and while she doesn’t want Cooper to suffer, she hires the party to find out about the cheese’s secret – after all, it’s making Cooper rich. Clever PCs will realize that they are not the first sent on this errand.

En route to Stilton, the party will be attacked by bandits, including a particularly burly one who seems off – a nice introductory battle, and one that doesn’t necessarily have to result in the party being killed: Handing over money etc. is very much possible. Also a plus: What looks like a random encounter actually has bearing on another NPC, who will arrive later than day.

Now, Stilton per se is pretty unremarkable: There’s not much going on beyond “The Bell Inn” here; a hysterical man in prison (whom the party may actually never meet) claims that his wife’s vanished, but the people at the inn seem to be friendly. Okay, cooper’s wife seems to be mentally handicapped, and so is his ox of a son, but the man behind the cheese? Nice fellow. The local food makes copious use of the blue cheese used in Stilton, and indeed, tastes phenomenally – though it does have some weird side-effects: It can make characters tough, but dumber, enhance their sexual attraction to cows, make them gain weight or the like – the cheese is definitely weird, but not that harmful…right?

Well, things turn slowly more threatening among all those nice people, as the storm rages outside and the local scallywag has words with Cooper outside. If the bandits weren’t taken care of, a robbed lady arrives and is given shelter for free in the cow-shed…Cooper seems like a nice man…but his cowbell-wearing, daft son seems to be drawing strange figures into the condensation.

All of this is very British – an almost League of Gentlemen-esque depiction of rural life, including this sense of threat and danger underlying it.

The module itself? Well, it takes place during the stormy night. The PCs are assumed to investigate, and we get a VERY detailed timetable for what happens when, and from the (possibly robbed) guest to the local guard to other NPCs, there is quite a bit of potential for introducing dynamic factors as complications or reprieves for the party. Ultimately, the party will need to secure an entrance to the cow-shed (with Cooper’s key?) and find a trapdoor here – this trapdoor leads towards the small, mapped dungeon mentioned before, and it is here that the horror underlying the pragmatism comes to the fore.

You see, Cooper had two kids: James (the now incredibly strong, but dull man upstairs), and Heather – and they found this ancient complex. Inside, heather found a stone arch and then proceeded to activate it. In a kind of somewhat halfway competent manner. Emphasis on “halfway.” You see, Heather stumbled through the arch, and turned into a grotesque cow-human hybrid thing (illustrated in a rather graphic and disturbing manner); her changed physiology leaking blue milk. When James tried the milk, her turned into an imbecile, and when Cooper’s wife turned into a problem, she also got a nice glass of milk.

The complex down here hides an impromptu shed for the man-cow things…which also get a sort of slow regeneration. The weird meat served upstairs? Guess where it comes from…And the missing travelers? Many can be found here, grotesquely-mutated and often deprived of their limbs. While Cooper cares about his girl (the only cow-thing kept in a human manner), the others? Well, not so much. This becomes particularly evident in the impromptu slaughterhouse, where a half-alive cow thing (once aforementioned missing lady) may convulse while hanging on the meat-hook, spraying blood everywhere. Worse: She was pregnant. When Cooper realizes this, he’ll have a breakdown that clever PCs can exploit…should the timeline provide the angle.

Oh, and the arch? It’s guarded by what happens when you shove a proper cow through – a ravenous and extremely dangerous cow-thing called Daisy, which is a pretty sad combatant; a frightened animal full of pain. The full horror might well become apparent if the party experiments with James’ magical cowbell (which allows for communication with the mooing cow-things), or if they stumble through the arch, for the latter will make the affected see all others as cow things…

What struck me as most effective here, though, was Cooper and his son: He is no scheming mastermind, just an incredibly pragmatic man – a man whose pragmatism has turned into truly gut-wrenching, sickening villainy…and yet, he’s no (totally) inhumane monster.

There are no easy choices here. There is no clean slate or happily ever after regarding the horrors in Stilton. The module covers some advice for PCs trying to contact authorities or the like, and the module can go in quite an array of different directions. The spell mentioned before is btw. a means to transform targets into cow-things on a failed save – permanently. The effects of the milk and cheese, as hinted before, are clearly depicted…and as a whole, well, as a whole, this situation can have vast repercussions for both the party and the world. But unlike many LotFP-publications, these consequences are always the result of the actions of the party, not of a random roll of the dice.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are very good, I noticed no issues on a formal or rules-language level. Layout adheres to a 1-column no-frills standard with bold red highlights, and the b/w-artwork provided are effective at conveying the horror at hand. The cartography is b/w, sports a grid, and is detail-wise nice, but a VTT-version sans labels would have been nice. Similarly, getting a map for Inn and cowshed would have been awesome.

Oli Palmer’s (to my knowledge) first module is a resounding success. It is novel, featuring themes I haven’t seen executed this well before; it is very detailed, and contrasts its funny and somewhat ridiculous premise with truly gutwrenching horror. It is extremely effective, and I genuinely love the adventure.

On the downside, the cartography could be more extensive – this isn’t particularly convenient for people like yours truly, who suck at drawing maps.

Now, I mentioned an exchange with a patreon supporter before: I was asked to recommend an introductory module for a LotFP campaign that’s better than Tower of the Stargazer. Emphasis on “campaign” – i.e. on prolonged play that embraces high impact concepts, but isn’t all about randomly ending the world.

This module is just that. It perfectly hits the grotesque horror notes, but also features a humor often absent from comparable modules. I LOVE this adventure as a person.

As a reviewer, the map-situation is pretty much my only true gripe with this, which is why I’d usually round down from my final verdict of 4.5 stars. However, at least to my knowledge, this is the author’s freshman offering, and oh boy is it awesome for that! Traditionally, the freshman offering gets a bit of leeway, which is why my official final verdict will round up from 4.5 stars. This also gets my seal of approval for the execution and audacity of the concept. If you don’t mind the map-situation and like horror, consider this a must-buy recommendation right here!

Endzeitgeist out.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This module clocks in at 43 pages, 1 page front cover, 2 pages of introduction/editorial/SRD, leaving us with 40 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

Okay, so this module is situated in a desert area, and it is intended for a party of characters ranging from levels 5 to 7. I’d suggest the usual 4-6. A general overview map of the region is provided (sans scale), but on a plus-side, the module does come with…(mostly) player-friendly maps! The 9 rooms of the tomb all get their own one-page versions, sport grids, but no scale, and an overview map is also provided for the GM. While labels are on the maps, in several cases, the letters are outside the maps, and can be cut off – this, however, doesn’t extend to all maps.

The information-design of the module is pretty good, though: We do get read-aloud text, which is generally well-written, and the support extends to dialogues with NPCs – helpful and neat. Below those sections, we have bullet points. Monsters also come with descriptions – a nice touch.

Now, this was an early offering of the author, and it does show – though the author has improved the book: Originally, the module was missing proper statblocks, providing only abbreviated versions. This has since then been remedied (KUDOS!) – we get full stats for the creatures encountered. On the downside, the statblock formatting could make a clearer distinction between the statblock and passive feature-section, particularly since the passive features (such as Keen Hearing and Smell), while properly bolded, don’t have their names in proper italics. Still: Better formatting than many instances I’ve seen. On the formatting-side, “Hit:” should be in italics: “Hit:” to make parsing faster. Anyhow, beyond these, we have some average damage values being slightly off: 3d6+3 should e.g. be 13, not 12. Skills are also not always correct. One part of the final boss is missing its poison damage immunity that the entire being has. More grating, no HD-values are provided – only HP-values are included. So yeah, while we now have stats, they aren’t exactly anywhere close to perfect.

On the plus side, the module does quite a bit right: We get some rather neat setups: There are two NPCs – young thief Layla, and the wizard Azzan, are investigating the tomb (looking for missing mentors both), and the PCs can compete with them, cast their lots with them, etc. – or, well, a deaf cobbler found in a dangerous oasis might also provide a hint. In short: The hooks are rather detailed.

Trekking through the desert also provides some sample hazards, and did I mention the trap-like things lurking in the sands, the sabercats or dune rays? This module manages to establish a fantastic, yet gritty atmosphere from the get-go. A plus: The book has a great reason for not allowing for rest-scumming: It, well, screams. Kudos for that!

The deaf cobbler also introduces a bit of humor…but yeah, in order to explain more, I’ll need to go into SPOILERS. Potential players should jump ahead to the conclusion.

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All right, only GMs around? Great!

So, the module is per se a straight-forward tomb-exploration: If the party talks to the wizard Azzan Wadi making camp near the tomb, he’ll tell the PCs that his mentor first dealt with the first instance of the tomb screaming, but lost his life doing so. You see, years past, a master thief (the mentor of Layla) entered the tomb and inadvertently-crashed through it, opening a passage to the Dolorous Ichor – a black slime-thing, which is emitting the screams, seeking to lure new prey. The PCs thus have the global effects on the tomb aligned with this antagonist – the black ooze can also animate ichor warriors, which are HARD to kill. There are multiple entries to the tomb (official route or the thief’s), and random encounters with howling (non-undead) ghuuls are also part of the deal. Exploring the tomb, the PCs can meet Layla, and magical monsters (which can affect you with a sight-hampering growth of spider-eyes, thankfully temporary!), spiders with piercing glass webs and the like – some really cool stuff is here. The detail is also neat: The book provides e.g. a whole array of information for speak with dead, and risk/reward ratios are neat: Sure, the NPCs are helpful, but they do have their own agendas…Layla will, for example, not stand for the PCs trying to take her erstwhile mentor’s gear.

Oh, and there’s a surprise waiting: the missing master Barnabas is actually alive – in a way. He’s sealed in amber, as his spell seems to have gone awry…and powerful magic may restore him. Oh, and then, there’s this white, aggressive arm extending from the wall – it belongs to a massive fiend trapped here, who has a deal: Let it eat a limb, and the character gains power. This forever eliminates the limb, but grants an increase of +2 to Constitution, advantage on death saves, resistance to fire, cold and poison damage, darkvision of 60 ft., and the ability to read and write Infernal. Okay, how does that influence spellcasting? How does losing a leg influence the character? What about multi-limbed races, after all, there are plenty of those available for 5e? This is a solid idea, but its execution is lackluster.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are okay; on a rules-language level, the book suffers from its deviations from the standards, and on a formal level, the irreverent and well-wrought writing contrasts with some typos – my favorite being the “data palm.” Artworks and cartography are hand-made and functional. I strongly recommend printing the adventure, for the pdf has no bookmarks. Boo! The module comes with a second, low-res version for mobile devices.

Joseph Robert Lewis’ excursion into the screaming tomb is an early offering, and it shows; it is an attempt at executing a straight-forward dungeon crawl in 5e, and frankly, I liked it much more than I should have. It has some replay value, and the wealth of weird creatures features, the global effects and details – this shows love and a distinct voice. While it is not as inspired as his usual work, the module still has fun to offer, provided you can look past the formatting issues. Particularly due to its more than fair $1.00 asking price, this is worth checking out if you’re looking for a solid dungeon. It has flaws, but it also has a couple of nifty ideas.

That being said, I’d recommend the author’s other work, like the brilliant Saving Saxham, over this any day of the week. My final verdict for the screaming tomb can’t exceed 3.5 stars, rounded down.

Endzeitgeist out.