Review Originally Published February 7th, 2001

The Spear of the Lohgin is a dark horror module for D&D developed under the D20 Trademark License by Paradigm Concepts, a newcomer to the gaming industry who plans to release further D20 adventures and a completely separate game called Pulp in the near future. The Spear of the Lohgin is the first in a trilogy which Paradigm is calling the Canceri Chronicles (which is, itself, the first installment of a trilogy, to be followed by the Milandir and Coryani Chronicles). That being said, The Spear of the Lohgin stands just fine by itself. (No, really, it does – I’m not just saying that.)

Although plagued with editorial problems and a host of execution errors, the core of The Spear of the Lohgin is an extremely evocative, fairly well-done piece of horror. It’s a bit of a fixer-upper, but worth the effort.

PLOT

Warning: From this point forward, this review will contain spoilers for The Spear of the Lohgin. Players who may end up playing in this module are encouraged to stop reading now. Proceed at your own risk.

Several hundred years ago, the Lohgin family was a noble house favored by the god Illiir, who gifted them with his own Spear, a weapon engraved with the Word of Illiir itself. The House of Lohgin fell when Jude Lohgin, enraged by his father’s favor falling upon his younger brother Vir, formed a pact with demonic forces, killed his sister-in-law, and began to open a Gate to the realms of the Triumvirate of Dark Gods. Vir, receiving word of his brother’s treachery, returned home and impaled Jude upon the Spear of the Lohgin.

Unfortunately, Vir interrupted his brother just as he opened his Gate – and something came through it uncontrolled, attempting to possess Jude. Seeing his brother torn to shreds by the demon’s rage, Vir felt his faith falter… and the Spear broke in two. Vir fled, leaving the demon trapped – pinned halfway through the Gate by the point of the holy spear. Vir would establish a new town to the south, but the demon would remain… slowly corrupting the land around him.

Centuries pass, and the PCs come on the scene. Someone has stolen the haft of the Spear of the Lohgin (which has become a holy relic), and has taken it back to the Lohgin Stronghold where the evil was done long ago. If they restore the Spear – allowing it to be removed from the demon – then the Gate will open and the land will fall beneath the forces of Dark Gods.

LOW POINTS

The most egregious flaws in The Spear of the Loghin are to be found in the boxed text: For example, I find that boxed text which summarizes an entire conversation (instead of actually letting your PCs have the conversation) is a bad idea. I think that boxed text which makes decisions for the PCs is a bad idea. I even have a sneaking suspicion that you shouldn’t have a big block of boxed text, followed by details about stuff which happens in the middle of the block.

And then there’s the text which has been boxed, which shouldn’t be boxed. And the the text which should have been boxed, but wasn’t.

If I was the suspicious sort, then I would say that this adventure was written without boxed text in mind, and then somebody came in after the fact to add the boxed text and botched the job.

As a final, general note: As I see more and more D20 products, I’m quickly reaching the conclusion that I’m going to get very, very sick of Campaign Cartographer maps. Particularly Campaign Cartographer maps rendered in a meaningless gray scale with strange and incomprehensible symbols which are left utterly unkeyed. If you can afford a really excellent Brom cover and some average to disturbingly good interior art (as Paradigm Concepts apparently can), then find someone who can actually draw a legible map.

HIGH POINTS

I always dread reviewing products whose faults are concrete and whose strengths are ephemeral. It’s so easy to trot out a litany of flaws in such cases, pat oneself on the back, and trot off into the sunset content with the thought you’ve scored some cheap points and come across as incredibly clever.

But to do that wouldn’t be fair to products like the The Spear of the Lohgin. Yes, there are problems with the presentation. Yes, there are some questionable visual elements. Yes, there are some structural deficiencies.

But the The Spear of the Lohgin excels at putting down on the page a visceral, extremely disturbing variety of horror adventure which I haven’t seen in a published D&D product previously. It’s the type of horror which can get away with the graphic depiction of grisly detail, while – at the same time – maintaining an eerie mystery about it all. It’s a “best of both worlds” approach which I find to be extremely effective.

So, yes, there are some accessibility problems here. But I would say that it’s worth the fight to crack this nutshell – because the nut inside is of top quality.

Writer: Jarad Fennell
Publisher: Paradigm Concepts
Price: $9.99
Page Count: 32
ISBN: 1-931374-00-7
Product Code: PCI 1001

I had a weird Mandela Effect with this one. For 20+ years I’ve been convinced this module was called The Spear of Lohgin. It was even written as such in this review. When I went to grab the cover image, though, I discovered that it was, in fact, called The Spear of THE Lohgin. I have no idea how the alternate version of reality became lodged in my brain.

It’s interesting that my past-self wrote about the difficulty of expressing the ephemeral qualities of an adventure like this. Although I could not recount to you any of the specifics of the plot of The Spear of the Lohgin after all these years (and never had a chance to run it), it’s always stuck in my mind as having a very strong VIBE. Re-reading my review has encouraged me to revisit this particular module.

In fact, I’d recommend that you grab a copy, too, but that seems to be curiously difficult. Although the second module in the Canceri Chronicles, Blood Reign of Nishanpur, is still available, for some reason this one is not. Paradigm Concepts’ Arcanis setting went on to be featured in its own RPG in 2011 and featured an incredibly successful living campaign which ran for over a decade and had dozens and dozens of adventures released for it. They won ENnie Awards and Origin Awards. But their website and the Living Arcanis website went quiescent in 2020 and I was about to write that they seem to have quietly slipped away…

… except I just discovered that they’re still active on Facebook, apparently ran events at Origins and Gen Con last year, and also released a new Legends of Arcanis adventure, Things Left Behind, in August 2024. I don’t understand why the News section of their website hasn’t been updated since 2017, but good for them!

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

Review Originally Published January 8th, 2001

Tomb of the Overseers and Against the Barrow King are the third and fourth D20 modules in AEG’s Adventure Boosters series. (The first two – Castle Zadrian and Sundered Faith – were reviewed previously.) To recap briefly: The Adventure Boosters are 16 half-pages long, with a map in the middle of the pamphlet, a new monster, and a new magic item. Eight of these Boosters have been released so far, and, at $2.49 each, they’re a great way to pick up a cheap, single session adventure for your gaming group.

Warning: From this point forward, this review will contain spoilers for Tomb of the Overseers and Against the Barrow King. Players who may end up playing in these modules are encouraged to stop reading now. Proceed at your own risk.

TOMB OF THE OVERSEERS

Tomb of the Overseers is an excellent, tightly constructed dungeon crawl. Surprisingly, despite its short length, it also has a definite – and effective – epic quality to it, which earns Ken Villars and John Zinser, the designers, high kudos from me.

The background for Tomb of the Overseers is evocative: Nearly a century ago a paladin by the name of Lord Eriador led his people to freedom from a great evil. With the land freshly united he was called to continue his fight upon the higher planes, but he left an Overseer to watch over the land in his absence and promised that, if his land was ever in need of him again, he would return upon being summoned from Mount Anduin.

Now, with the Third Overseer upon the throne, the land is in trouble: An evil mage has sent forth his humanoid hordes to oppress the people. The mage has also filled Mount Anduin with foul creatures in order to prevent the people from calling upon their legendary champion. Although three parties have gone and never returned, it is hoped that the PCs will succeed where they failed.

The dungeon itself is, as I’ve noted, of excellent design. Although I would’ve liked to see a greater impact left behind by the three adventuring parties who came this way before, the complex nevertheless has a layered complexity that gives Tomb of the Overseers a nice dynamic during play. Basically there are three things at work here: First, the creatures left by the evil mage. Second, the natural guardians of this place (who will test the PCs to see if they are worthy of summoning forth Eriadon). And, finally, the puzzle of how to access the magical chamber from which Eriadon may be summoned.

The only flaw in this package is the back cover text and adventure hook (which casts the PCs as the long-time residents of Eriador’s country). I consider this to be unnecessarily intrusive upon the DM’s campaign, and a liability in terms of making the adventure truly flexible. Fortunately, this is neatly sidestepped by simply ignoring it.

At $2.49 this one is a definite steal.

(Tomb of the Overseers is designed for 5-6 characters of levels 3-5.)

AGAINST THE BARROW KING

Against the Barrow King is not as strong as Tomb of the Overseers, but is nonetheless well worth the meager price you’re being asked to pay.

The premise: A village believes itself to be under attack by the disturbed spirit of the Barrow King, whose burial grounds (steeped in legend and superstition) are located only a few miles out of town. It is hoped that the PCs will be able to track down the Barrow King and rid the village of his plague.

The twist: If the spirit of the Barrow King truly rests still within his burial ground, then it slumbers still. The village is actually being victimized by a cult of Vroodith, god of Slaughter, which has moved into the abandoned burial grounds.

That’s not much of a twist – but it adds spice to what is otherwise a straight-out dungeon crawl: The PCs go into the burial ground, root out the cult, and solve the village’s problems.

(Against the Barrow King is designed for 4-6 characters of levels 3-5.)

CLOSING NOTE

As a closing note, let me say that it’s nice to see a D20 producer who’s willing to jump immediately to mid-level adventures. With Atlas Games, Green Ronin, Necromancer, Wizards of the Coast, and several others already turning out high quality introductory modules, I don’t think it’s necessary to keep pumping more material into a market sector which has been safely sated for at least the next year.

Style: 3
Substance: 4

Title: Adventure Boosters: Tomb of the Overseers and Against the Barrow King
Writers: Ken Villars & John Zinser (Tomb of the Overseers) and Against the Barrow King (Steve Hough)
Publisher: AEG
Price: $2.49/each
Page Count: 16
ISBN: n/a
Product Code: 8303, 8304

As I mentioned last time, I had intended to review all of the AEG Adventure Boosters, but stopped after being hired by Fantasy Flight Games to write for their competing line of Instant Adventures.

I might not have finished the project in any case, as after the first batch, AEG published I believe two more batches, for a total of 40+ adventures. That’s a lot of adventures! These were later updated to the 3.5 rules and collected in the Adventure I and Adventure II compilation volumes.

Next AEG Booster Review: Crypt of St. Bethesda

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

Go to Part 1

THE THIRD SECTOR

I really love the concept of Ian Yusem’s The Third Sector: Take a dozen different third-party Mothership adventures and weave them together into a sandbox spanning five solar systems. Hypothetically you should be able to do some light remixing, add a little connective tissue, and have a great little campaign-in-a-box showcasing the best of the best.

Unfortunately, The Third Sector really shouldn’t have been packaged as trifold module.

The limited space of the trifold format lends itself to material which is either too brief or broad. But the work required to coherently bind disparate published adventures together is, in fact, entirely in the details.

The two central pillars of The Third Sector are the sector map and the scenario hooks added to each adventure.

The sector map is attractive in a retro, 8-bit-graphics style, but curiously lacking a lot of pertinent details (e.g., the names of planets).

The scenario hooks are designed to link the adventures to each other (so, for example, you’ll find hooks in the Green Tomb that will lead you to Moonbase Blues, Alcor Station, and Echoes in the Graveyard). A minor problem here is that the section is incomplete, with some of the scenarios not receiving scenario hooks for reasons which are entirely unclear to me.

A more significant problem is that most of the scenario hooks are either unengaged (they mention a place exists, but gives no reason for the PCs to go there), non-actionable (they indicate that a place exists, but don’t tell the PCs how to find it), or both. This is likely, once again, due to the limited space, since vague references are easier to squeeze into a single sentence than meaningful, actionable information.

Probably the most interesting thing in The Third Sector is the random encounter which reads, “[Corporation] acquired [other corporation]. (Choose 2 from random adventures each time rumor rolled.”) This is an intriguing procedural method for unifying the disparate hypercorps found scattered throughout the source adventures over time.

In practice, though, that unification — and not just of  hypercorps — is exactly the sort of considered, careful, creative work that would have made The Third Sector a truly useful resource.

GRADE: F

WRATH OF GOD

Wrath of God is another example of a supplement that’s just trying to cram WAY too much into the trifold format. In this case, that includes:

• A complete skirmish system for space fighter combat.
• A hex-based Battlefield map keyed with various Locations of Interest.
• A prequel to a longer adventure called The Drain.

In this case, the result is basically incoherent. I’ve been backwards and forwards through Wrath of God and I honestly don’t have the slightest inkling of what this adventure is supposed to be.

For example, in the skirmish system includes a Skirmish Map keyed with symbols, but what these symbols mean (if they mean anything) doesn’t seem to be indicated. The Battlefield Map similarly has a bunch of symbols, although most of these seem to be related to the content keyed to these hexes… except not all such hexes are keyed. (Although some of the unkeyed hexes are referenced in other keyed hexes, which is an insanely confusing layout that I can only imagine is due to the space limitations unnecessarily imposed by the trifold format here.)

I also only have the vaguest sense of what the Battlefield Map represents. Maybe it’s a war currently being fought? Or many wars currently being fought? Or the wreckage of older wars?

There are Bogeys who will attack the PCs. But… why? And who are they, exactly? Where did they come from? Where are they going? Your guess is as good as mine.

“Okay,” I think. “This is a prequel to The Drain. So maybe I need that full adventure to understand this one.”

Unfortunately, no, that doesn’t help. Because (a) it turns out that Wrath of God doesn’t seem to actually sync up with The Drain and (b) nothing is actually explained. The PCs are seeking the 3^rd Testament, which is apparently a radio broadcast being sent from a colony called Within Wheels. What is the 3^rd Testament? No idea. Why is the colony transmitting it? No idea. How are they transmitting it? Possibly from something called the Grail. How’d the Grail get there? Stop asking questions, please.

GRADE: F

WHAT STIRS BELOW

Something has gone wrong at a geological survey station and the PCs are dispatched to (a) figure out what happened and (b) rescue as many VIPs as possible.

What Stirs Below includes a helpful What The Hell Is Going On? section:

There is an ancient power station deep below the surface. A skeleton crew of ancient aliens uses giant worms to generate energy and sustain the crew’s near-immortality. With enough power generated, this moon will depart on a 10k-year interstellar journey toward Earth… or whatever is a good fit at your table.

It’s a cool concept, which is unfortunately held back from its potential by a number of problems.

First, and probably most intractable, is that the size of the adventure doesn’t match the scope of the adventure. There’s this implication of a huge, hollowed-out moon filled with aliens preparing for some sort of multi-millennia odyssey… but a nine-room location-crawl can’t really deliver on that promise.

This kind of size/scope mismatch is not uncommon in RPG adventures, and I find that they consistently create a mixture of disappointment and confusion in players, while pushing me into a weird, dissociated fugue state between what the adventure actually is and what it’s asking me to convey.

Second, there are a number of execution issues which will leave you confused and disoriented:

• The map of the adventure has a literal ? where a room should be, and I simply can’t figure out why.
• The survey station has been destabilized by the tunnels below the station collapsing, which has created a sinkhole the PCs can use to access the alien chambers. This sinkhole is located… somewhere? The adventure never seems to specify.
• The adventure key is filled with typos. For example, Area A5 has an exit that leads to… Area A5? (I think the rooms were renumbered on the map at some point and the key wasn’t correctly updated, but I’m not 100% sure.)
• There’s an android who, Alien-style, will attempt to impede the PCs’ investigation and even “self-destruct if necessary.” But… why? No explanation is given.

Related to these issues, the PCs are instructed to determine what happened at the station, but I honestly can’t even figure that out for myself: It’s not clear what (if anything) triggered the geological collapse. It’s not clear what any of the NPCs did in the aftermath of the collapse or what the timeline of events was. It’s not even clear why the hypercorp lost contact with the NPCs and needed to send the PCs.

The end result is an adventure that’s… mostly OK. But I would probably end up completely re-keying the entire thing before I would feel comfortable running it.

GRADE: C-

THE HORROR OF TAU SIGMA 7

A routine system survey has detected the signature for the rare mineral NM-109 on Tau Sigma 7. The PCs are sent in as a survey team to confirm the presence of the mineral.

What they discover, while exploring a nearby cavern, is an alien bioplastic cyst-complex which is an untriggered hatchery for a long-extinct alien species. (It sure would be a pity if the PCs accidentally triggered the birthing process, wouldn’t it?)

In The Horror on Tau Sigma 7, D.G. Chapman delivers a creeptacular location-crawl. The excellently xandered, truly three-dimensional environment and accompanying key would be strong enough to recommend this adventure entirely on their own merits, but he also spikes the punch with several scenario-spanning elements:

• The entire complex is a living organism, and responds to the PCs’ presence and actions through an Immune Response Level that escalates and transforms the adventure.
• The complex is suffused with a strange, red liquid referred to as Lifeblood. Essential to the alien biology, it creates numerous strange effects (particularly to exposed PCs).
• Strange cave paintings can be found throughout the complex, which change and evolve as the Immune Response Level increases.

The result is fabulous. I highly recommend inviting your players to Tau Sigma 7.

GRADE: B+

CHILDREN OF EDEN

Graham T. Richardson fills Children of Eden to the gills with an astoundingly rich assortment of alien and exotic worldbuilding: The 200+ meter-tall teralith; an alien skeleton worshiped by the Children of Eden as a god. The Salvage Seal, where a gravitational anomaly yanks vessels out of hyperspace and crash lands them on a fungi-ridden planet. The corrupted Theogeny Engine, an alien terraforming ship buried near the teralith which has recently reactivated, leading to the religious belief that the teralith itself is miraculously transforming a wasteland into paradise. A ruined scientific research center trying to probe the truth of this strange terraforming.

And all of this is supported by a rich cast of characters and a disquieting mystery occluded by a hypercorp’s desire to exploit and religious zealots’ desire to believe.

It’s truly amazing just how much richly detailed and soul-searingly evocative material can be found on these two pages. It’s simply inspiring. Richardson creates a vivid world that compels you to share it with your players.

My only real complaint is that there’s so much stuff in Children of Eden that the connective tissue between all of these elements is often obscured. It can be a little unclear exactly where stuff is in relation to each other, for example, which can make it difficult to figure out how you should be presenting this rich world to the players. There are just places where I’d probably be a little happier if the implied setting was a little more explicit and, therefore, easier to access during play.

To at least some extent, though, this is just grousing over having too much of a good thing. I’ll happily draw up a map, work up a timeline of events, and jot down a revelation list to help keep things clear at the table if it means that I can visit the Children of Eden.

GRADE: B

Note: LionHearth Games provided me with a review copy of Children of Eden.

With the Adventure Boosters AEG is the latest company to jump on the D20 bandwagon. But the Boosters are short, cheap, and funny-looking… Wait. Say what?

Review Originally Published January 8th, 2001

With the Adventure Boosters, AEG is the latest company to jump on the D20 System bandwagon by publishing modules suitable for use with the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons. The Boosters, however, come with a few of unique twists which help them stand out in a rapidly expanding market: First, they’re short. Second, they’re cheap. Third, they’re funny-looking.

Each of the Boosters is a four-inch by eleven-inch pamphlet: Essentially they’ve taken four normal sheets of paper, folded them over, and stapled it together with a cardboard cover.

Eight of these Boosters have been released so far, with the first two – Castle Zadrian and Sundered Faith – being reviewed here. The format for each is essentially identical: A location-keyed adventure, with a map in the center of the book, a new monster, and a new magical item.

At $2.49, the result is a quickly absorbed impulse buy which still manages to pleasantly fill an evening of gaming.

Warning: From this point forward, this review will contain spoilers for Castle Zadrian and Sundered Faith. Players who may end up playing in these modules are encouraged to stop reading now. Proceed at your own risk.

CASTLE ZADRIAN

Castle Zadrian, the first in the series, is written by Rich Wulf. The premise is simple: Lady Elena Zadrian’s father has disappeared, and she hires the PCs to go search for him at his country estate. The catch: Timoth Zadrian, her father, is a legendary alchemist. He has recently been experimenting with interdimensional space and has succeeded in making the rooms on the inside of his house larger than the outside of his house through the creation of a “dimensional web.” Unfortunately, a group of chaos spirits (the new monster for the Booster) have slipped through the gaps in the dimensional web and into his house, imprisoning Timoth and generally wreaking havoc. The PCs have to figure out what’s going on, navigate a house which exists in multiple dimensions, and rescue Timoth Zadrian from the chaos spirits.

In my opinion, Castle Zadrian is the weakest of the Adventure Boosters released so far (which is unfortunate, considering it’s perhaps the one people are most likely to pick up first). While the dimensional interior gimmick is interesting, many of its more fascinating possibilities remain unexploited (for example, the possibility of the house’s topography changing while the PCs are inside). The boxed text throughout the adventure misfires: scenes of wonder (such as a library filled with falling snow) are tossed aside as if they were unimportant baggage; in other cases it reveals information the PCs have no way of knowing (“Sir Timoth has never been a warrior…”). The treasure and XP methodology that Wulf exercises here is also dodgy at best.

The biggest problem with Castle Zadrian, however, is simple carelessness in the scenario’s design: The spine of the adventure is an alchemical mystery which must be untangled so that the dimensional webbing can be unraveled and the chaos spirits banished. While it is, for the most part, handled well, Wulf makes one key mistake: An important clue hinges upon seven coffins which are decorated with different alchemical metals: Gold, silver, iron, quicksilver—Hold it. You can’t decorate a coffin with quicksilver: Quicksilver is liquid at room temperature.

What’s more, Wulf knows this! Later in the same adventure he writes that the quicksilver must be poured over the crystal sphere which is the lynchpin of the dimensional web. I’m just not sure what he was thinking when he wrote this.

Castle Zadrian is based on an interesting concept (a house with an interdimensional interior which has slipped out of control)… but since I’ve just told you that concept, I’m not sure there’s anything worth picking up here.

(Castle Zadrian is designed for 3-4 characters of levels 4-5.)

SUNDERED FAITH

Sundered Faith, on the other hand, is an excellent example of what the Adventure Boosters can accomplish. The only real flaw here is that the first part of the adventure consists of the PCs moving from one 10’ by 10’ room full of monsters to another 10’ by 10’ room full of monsters. (Although, to be fair, perhaps this was meant to be a bit of an in-joke by Kevin Wilson.)

In Sundered Faith a recent earthquake has opened an entrance from a fallen temple dedicated to the God of Death into the city’s sewer system and undead are emerging through it to carry off and kill helpless members of the citizenry. When the PCs go to investigate they have to fight their way through a couple sorties of zombies (in the aforementioned sequence of 10’ x 10’ rooms), before having a floor fall out from under them. Falling down a tube, they land in an underground lake which is inhabited by a massive undead Cave Wyrm (the new monster for the Booster). This is just one scene (with the lumbering, undead wyrm swimming around the PCs), and an example of how Wilson creates evocative environments.

Another good example of this is the Curse of Azrael, which is laid across the entire temple. It has several specific game effects (such as limiting the effectiveness of magical healing effects in the area), and these serve to elegantly reinforce the mood of the piece without resorting to telling the players what their characters are feeling. By affecting not only the PCs in the game world, but the players in the metagame, Wilson really makes the gimmick tick.

Some other good scenes: The skeletons chained to a wall in the flooded portion of the temple which try to drag the PCs to their watery doom; a hall which can suddenly fill with a mass of undead if the PCs set off an alarm; and a priest who impaled himself upon the altar of his god in order to save his temple (and thus brought the Curse of Azrael down upon the complex).

Sundered Faith actually has one other minor problem: There are several details which are supposed to be on the map which were not included. These don’t present a serious problem, but are indicative of the generally poor quality of the maps in all of these Adventure Boosters. They get the job done (most of the time), but are clumsily executed.

(Sundered Faith is designed for 4-6 characters of levels 6-8.)

Style: 3
Substance: 4

Title: Adventure Boosters: Castle Zadrian and Sundered Faith
Writers: Rich Wulf (Castle Zadrian) and Kevin Wilson (Sundered Faith)
Publisher: AEG
Price: $2.49/each
Page Count: 16
Product Code: 8301, 8302

I’m currently reviewing trifold adventures for Mothership, which have a very similar appeal to these old Adventure Boosters from AEG. At the time, I remember that there was a lot of talk about AEG “ripping people off” by charging them $2.50 for four sheets of paper while other companies were only charging $10 for sixteen sheets of paper (which, of course, doesn’t even make sense when you think about the math), but I was enthralled by them. At the time I think I put a lot of weight on the idea that they just made for such great impulse buys, allowing you to play the odds on Sturgeon’s Law (that 90% of every thing is crap). That was also true, but I’ve since come to realize just how powerful adventures designed to be quickly read and then immediately run.

(The Adventure Boosters are just a tidge long for this, but are close enough to get the job done.)

My original intention was to review all of the AEG Adventure Boosters, and you’ll see several more of these get reposted over the next few weeks. Midway through the project, however, I was hired by FFG to write for their line of Instant Adventures, which was the exact same concept with (if you’ll pardon my bias) better art. Given the obvious conflict of interest, I stopped reviewing the Adventure Boosters.

Next AEG Booster Review: Tomb of the Overseers / Against the Barrow King

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

Go to Part 1

DINOPLEX CATACLYSM

It’s Jurassic Park, but on a space station!

This is a cool idea for an adventure, but this scenario is, unfortunately, sabotaged by lackluster execution.

For example, there’s a player handout designed as a kid’s activity game where they’re supposed to find all twelve dinosaurs in the Dinoplex! If they can find them all, they get a free sticker set! But there aren’t twelve types of dinosaurs in the adventure. Even if you include the wooly mammoths and sabretooths which, despite the adventure’s claims, are clearly not dinosaurs, there’s still only eleven creatures listed. I really want this to be something clever – are they supposed to count Tony the T-Rex, the park’s mascot, as a separate dino? is the task deliberately impossible so the park never needs to give the kiddies their sticker sets? – but I’m pretty sure it’s just a mistake.

The adventure primarily consists of six park zones, each given a brief description, a list of attractions, a list of “dinosaurs”, and a one sentence description of how everything is changed “post-disaster.” I can hazard a few guesses on how this material could be used to actually run the adventure – a sector crawl seems like a good fit? but the park map is a hexmap, so maybe per-hex random encounter checks? – but at a certain point I’m no longer really describing the published adventure.

Dinoplex Catalcysm also briefly flirts with the idea that the resort could be used as a shore leave location, possibly more than once, before the disaster strikes. Since taking shore leave is a central mechanic in Mothership, required for characters to recover and advance, this is a very clever idea that could really give the scenario some extra punch. Unfortunately, it’s not actually developed into something useable: First, it’s not integrated into the actual shore leave mechanics. Second, the pre-disaster amusement park activities are largely not interesting enough to support any meaningful spotlight during actual play.

The same problem is found in the meat of the scenario: The post-disaster details of the park are simply too shallow, in my opinion, to support meaningful play. The fundamental details of the park are also too sketchy, with, for example, tundra environments requiring specialized cold weather gear being located a couple hundred meters from humid swamps with no explanation beyond possibly a vague wave in the direction of a “weather system.” Even the “disaster” which triggers the adventure is a headscratcher. I actually missed it entirely during my first read-through of the adventure because it’s hidden away as a single sentence in a sub-bullet point.

Ultimately, this seems to be more the concept of an adventure than an actual adventure.

GRADE: D

YEAR OF THE RAT

The PCs are sent to retrieve the black box from a curiously nameless casino ship that went missing a month ago. Unbeknownst to the former owners or the insurance company looking to avoid a costly payout, the ship has become infested by a rat-like alien species.

The adventure primarily consists of a one-page map-and-key spread detailing the ship. This has some really nice details, although the ship consisting of only a single two-dimensional deck feels a little wonky.

An important note: Although at first glance this appears to be formatted as a trifold module with six panels of information, for some inexplicable it’s not actually designed to be folded into a pamphlet. So if you do, in fact, print the adventure, fold it up, and attempt to read it, you will be very confused.

This disorientation is not helped by a layout which is clearly more interested in looking “cool” – with lots of graphical artifacts, “dirt,” and the like — than being usable or even legible.

Also worth being aware that, since the PCs will be looting a casino ship, their payout from this job is quite likely to be incredibly large. (And that’s before factoring in the insurance company’s payment to the PCs being salvage rights for the entire ship… which doesn’t quite make sense to me. You might also want to interrogate the logic of “ship went missing, here are the coordinates where it’s located” before running this.)

Despite a few rough edges, though, Year of the Rat is a solid adventure that can be a lot of fun in play. The rat-like aliens are, of course, the stars, and they can be a wonderful change of pace in a long-running Mothership campaign: Creepy, varied, and interesting, but also an infestation that the PCs can actually triumph over and clear out.

GRADE: B

MITOSIS: ESCAPE FROM STAR STATION

At a cutting-edge research station, a bacterial and/or viral outbreak causes some humans to mutate into either Lethian Braniacs or Cyberviral Goons. These mutants seem to have formed gangs and divided the station between them. Oat milk inhibits the Braniacs, but causes the Goons to go berserk. Walnut oil has the opposite effect.

There’s a map that’s very difficult to read, with lots of symbols that are unexplained. There’s a random encounter table consisting of either goons, brainiacs, or goons AND brainiacs.

The key for Area 0 seems to suggest that the PCs are pirates who were captured and then locked up in the prison and then their pirate captain promised escape, but the escape never happened, and also the captain (who they might meet later) doesn’t seem to know who they are.

To be honest, there’s like five different things going on in Mitosis: Escape From Star Station, and none of them are properly explained. This includes the nature, reason, and timeline of the outbreak itself, with just a vague reference to the “Mitosis-bacteria breach” and the “Mitosis-bolstered cybervirus.” (But also “Mitosis” is a board game that was being played in the cafeteria?) The color version of the module is also essentially unintelligible, although thankfully a black-and-white version is included.

What little coherency I can piece out from the text seems more like a parody of Mothership than anything else. There is a zany, schlock horror that seems promising if the idea of playing through a movie that Mystery Science 3000 would mock is appealing to you.

But, particularly at $6, I really can’t recommend this one.

GRADE: F

SO YOU’VE BEEN CHUMP-DUMPED

This is an odd adventure because the title and pitch — while being quite evocative! — really have nothing to do with the actual adventure.

The pitch is:

A cheap Jump-1 ticket? You thought you got lucky.

Now, stuck in the airlock with the other marks, you couldn’t feel lower. Then the warning lights flash. You hear a loud clunk, and your stomach sinks. In a blink, you’re all gulped into the nothing beyond with a brief whoosh.

Stars spin as you tumble through space, screaming promises of violence upon the friend who said they knew the perfect guy, who turned you into a doomed chump. The sounds just rattle around inside your helmet. Your only hope is this vaccsuit you were lucky enough to save for, or inherit, or steal and paranoid enough to don before leaving solid ground.

I was really intrigued by this! A unique survival scenario with vibes similar to Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity? In addition to the proposed jump-travel scam, you could imagine whipping out this adventure in any number of situations: Things go wrong for the PCs when pirates board their ship! A catastrophic hull breach! The only way to kill the alien horror is by blowing the airlock!

How will the PCs survive?!

Unfortunately, it turns out that this isn’t the adventure So You’ve Been Chump-Dumped delivers. Instead, the answer to, “How will the PCs survive?” is, “They immediately bump into a covert science vessel where an alien experiment has recently escaped confinement.”

How convenient.

It turns out, though, that this other adventure is really quite good. The adventure key describing the ship is colorful and engaging. The alien organism is creative and dynamic, driven by procedural generators that will create a unique playing experience for every group.

Other than the bait-and-switch, my only real quibble is the adventure map, which supposedly depicts the deckplans of the science vessel:

I’m obviously not opposed to a good pointmap, but this one is abstract to the point where it becomes impossible to actually describe the ship to my players. There are also some rather key questions raised by this map — like what, exactly, is the nature of these hallways? and what’s going on with this random vent system? — that I think you’ll want to straighten out before running this one.

I’ll definitely be drawing up a version of that map for myself soon, though, because So You’ve Been Chump-Dumped is definitely going into my open table rotation.

GRADE: B-

Go to Part 3