Another ICONS adventure that was converted to a GURPS Supers game. These adventures are great for plugging in as side adventures to a larger campaign.

I'm running this as a one-on-one HERO system adventure in a corporate espionage setting and it has been a lot of fun. The PDF is 14 pages long with four chapters and about eight 'scenes' of action. The adventure reads easily and focuses on painting the basics of each scene; the overview and goal, a few important details, and lots of motivations. I found it simple to edit sections/locations/npcs to fit within my campaign.

The theme of the adventure adds a slight twist to a very stereotypical story. Kenson's story was exactly what my heroes expected and was a lot of fun to watch unfold! I highly recommend this module if you want to run a few traditional superhero sessions. Of couse, you can always add some weirdness of your own :)

I look forward to playing through some of his other works!

In “The Skeletron Key,” Steve Kenson takes a fairly classic plotline of advanced technology run amok and turns it into a fun adventure for ICONS. The adventure is fairly straightforward, and shouldn’t be difficult for even a beginning GM to run, although it lacks some of the more direct (and useful) GM advice given in some of Adamant’s later ICONS adventures. In particular, inexperienced GMs would benefit from reading the advice given about GMing investigations on p. 9 of “Whiteout” by John Post and/or p. 12 of “The Mastermind Affair” by Morgan Davie before running “The Skeletron Key.” Since “The Skeletron Key” was the first published adventure for ICONS, Dan Houser’s artwork here was instrumental in reinforcing his fan-pleasing “ICONS style.” If you’re only interested in the villain Skeletron and not in his “origin story” adventure, you can find his stats in the Villainomicon instead. Admittedly, $5.00 seems a little steep for a PDF with only 12 pages of content, but perhaps not when compared with the price of a movie ticket or even a cup of gourmet coffee. Pesky punctuation errors aside, “The Skeletron Key” is a worthwhile addition to any ICONS library.

Having recently purchased and very much enjoyed ICONS, it was a given that I'd buy The Skeletron Key. It's written by Steve Kenson, the lead designer of ICONS with a game pedigree that includes M&M, True20, Blue Rose and more. Sold.

The Skeletron Key is a relatively short adventure for the ICONS Superpowered Roleplaying Game. The art style is identical to ICONS, with ample evocative art to capture the feel of the adventure. If I were being completely honest, when first downloaded, I was a tad concerned that there wasn't going to be much adventure in this PDF. The sales blurb clearly says that the PDF is pretty short, coming in at about 14 pages (13 with cover), and I wasn't sure how much good stuff could be fit into such a small product. I should have simply trusted that Mr. Kenson can get a lot done within a few pages - he has before, and has done so again. There is plenty of game here, and any concerns I had were unfounded.

The Skeletron Key is a pretty straightforward adventure that details the origin of an interesting new adversary - and also gives GMs and Players new to ICONS a clear and concise introduction to how to formulate adventures. I can't say a whole lot without perhaps giving away spoilers, but the tale is one which is paced well, provides a few pointers on how to get players back on track in the event that they stray off course, and lastly, provides a few memorable characters to add to your ICONS campaign - both good and bad. The main adversary reminds me very much of one of my favorite Marvel villains...so simply having him as a benchmark to build other characters was worth the price of admission alone.

Overall, this is a very good starting point for any ICONS game, and a fun adventure to boot. Well worth $5.