Many TV shows like to have a 'Christmas Special' and if your gaming group is the same, this is a good book to pick up so as to indulge them... and it has TWO adventures so if you are lucky enough to actually have some gamers around (my local group always vanishes over Christmas), good times may be had.
The first adventure is The Thing in the Chimney, a low-level adventure ideally suited to a 'funnel' horde of 1st-level characters or to smaller numbers of higher-level folk. It's a bizarre dream-like caper in a weird world, an alternate dimension perhaps, in which the party comes across a great hall in a freezing northern land on the longest night of the year. Mix in a sentient fruit cake and a map that bends reality (before you have scoffed any alcohol-laden fruit cake!) and you can see why I call it bizarre... but fun, something completely different to regular gaming yet providing a gaming 'fix' over the holidays. It could even prove an amusing diversion for non-gamer family members, as the holiday theme makes it quite accessible to someone unfamiliar with role-playing.
The second adventure is The Nexus of Yule and it's aimed at a regular party of 3rd-level characters. This again has bizarre and interdimensional aspects due to Cinder Claws, who appears in both adventures but is the instigator of this one. All manner of strange events await the characters, including a brawl between rat-people and toy soldiers, animate figgy puddings and a surreal conversation with Cinder Claws once you meet him. Again one to enjoy with a tongue-in-cheek approach.
This kind of thing may not be to everyone's taste, but if you are willing to let go and enter into the holiday spirit, there's fun to be had!
Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!] |