Raiders of the Serpent Sea - Third Party 5E Review

[Sparky McDibben]

So I put out a quick post yesterday asking if anyone had any reviews for Raiders of the Serpent Sea, the latest Norse-mythology-inspired adventure from the same team who did Odyssey of the Dragonlords. I didn't really find any, nor did I see any on DrivethruRPG.com. So, I figured that I should take Kim Kardashian's advice and "Be the change I want to see in the world."

By which I mean I'm going to download a 500 page mega-adventure and review the whole darned thing. And if you're thinking, "This sounds like a fun trainwreck to watch," well then friend, pull up a chair and crack your beverage of choice while you watch me lose my mind.

So, to start, SPOILERS: There will be spoilers. Duh. I'm reviewing the product, and that involves evaluating portions of the story, too. So if you are playing in this, I recommend not reading any further. If you are looking to run this, I think you are a cool person and I respect your dedication to the craft. Hop on board and let me know if you think I'm off base with any of my critiques. If you are looking to run this and a law enforcement officer, you're a wonderful human being and I don't know anything about what happened with that chinchilla ranch.

Alright, now on to the actual review. I purchased the Raiders of the Serpent Sea Campaign Guide (PDF version) for $25 today. At 498 pages, that clocks in at about 5 cents per page. Note that this review is only for the Campaign Guide; there is a Player's Guide that I may do a separate review of in the future.

First Impressions:

The layout is...not great. The book is very, very wordy. It's also confusingly organized, almost like it's not meant to be run at the table, but more as a prep reference. I'll highlight specific instances of this as we go through, but as an example, the book makes multiple references to something called the GM's Reference. Well, try as I might, searching both the Campaign Book and the Player's Guide, I couldn't find the GM's Reference. So eventually I brute-forced it (searched the Campaign Book) and found that the GM's Reference is actually a digital add-on that's only available if you bought the VTT maps, but if you send an e-mail to an e-mail address, they'll shoot you a copy.

And hey, that'd be great if the GM's Reference was just a few cleaned up tables or something, but this document contains the inspirational media, potential content warnings, customizing backgrounds, modifying difficulty for party size, etc. It's kind of important! And it's free and just an email away, but why the hell wasn't it included in the original document? Y'all already hit 500 pages!

The writing is decent, but again, wordy. This should have been far fewer pages than they ultimately used. For example, there are a ton of references to a character who, explicitly, will never be directly encountered during the adventure. And like, that's great? But also, if the PCs never encounter something, nor are acted upon by it, then the something does not exist in the game. All this crap does is give me more cognitive *scrubbed* to deal with. Just cut the darned character and give me something actionable.

However, the art is absolutely sumptuous. Like, it's so good it makes me mad. Look at this feisty murder-queen:
*scrubbed*

I immediately want to know who the hell this lady is! What is her deal? And it pisses me off that this is the title page of the book, so there's no additional detail. Please call out your suggestions, because I'm curious what y'all think.

So that's my general overall impressions of the text. I'll be proceeding in my usual chapter-by-chapter fashion through the rest of the book's 12 chapters and seven appendices, because I hate myself and seek misery rather than happiness (I'm kidding - it's because I'm a workaholic).

Also, I'm stealing this bit from Libertad's excellent review of Odyssey of the Dragonlords: (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?610109-Let-s-Read-Odyssey-of-the-Dragonlords)


There's a ton of stuff in this adventure that borrows heavily from well-established Bioware tropes. If you're a fan of Dragon Age or Mass Effect, keep an eye out for these to see how these tropes get implemented at the tabletop!

All right, friends! I'll see you on the next one!

[Libertad]

I'm definitely interested in seeing where they go with this. I'm not exactly fond of splitting up the adventure/setting and player's guide into 2 separate books for sale. Odyssey of the Dragonlords had the "player" stuff as a free PDF, but you only had to buy one book to get the whole package.

Also permission granted to steal my Trope Alert idea. :smallamused:

[animorte]

By which I mean I'm going to download a 500 page mega-adventure and review the whole darned thing. And if you're thinking, "This sounds like a fun trainwreck to watch," well then friend, pull up a chair and crack your beverage of choice while you watch me lose my mind.
Gladly, each and every time. Welcome back, friend!


GM's Reference...It's kind of important!
Oh, that's frustrating. Unnecessary flaming hoop to dive through, which you aren't even directed to? Guess it's their way to teach a lesson in taking initiative. :smallconfused:


(I'm kidding - it's because I'm a workaholic).

All right, friends! I'll see you on the next one!
I certainly admire your dedication. Looking forward to it!

[Sparky McDibben]

I'm definitely interested in seeing where they go with this. I'm not exactly fond of splitting up the adventure/setting and player's guide into 2 separate books for sale. Odyssey of the Dragonlords had the "player" stuff as a free PDF, but you only had to buy one book to get the whole package.

Also permission granted to steal my Trope Alert idea. :smallamused:

It's, uh, interesting, for sure. Not super jazzed about the fact that the player's guide is about 10 cents per page, where the campaign book is 5 cents, but I suppose they figure that book will sell more.


Gladly, each and every time. Welcome back, friend!

Yeah, that OGL business was harshing my mellow, which as you know is pre-harshed. So I took a few weeks off the forums, but now...
*scrubbed*

Alright, so, let's go over the Introduction, which is 25 (!) pages long (Remember when I said they were wordy? Apparently they're going for the Matt Colville Verbosity Award1). Now I've got my snark worked off, so we can dive in! The Introduction has a lot of work they're trying to do. They need to introduce the DM to the world, distinguish it from the baseline heroic fantasy, setup what is going on, what the characters are supposed to be doing. It does this...eventually.

We start off with the hilariously badly titled section: Story Overview. The reason it is badly titled is because it does not actually deal with the story of the adventure. It covers that there was a brief cataclysm in the Lost Lands, which resulted in the folks who live in this world fleeing to Grimnir (the world this adventure is set in, which is a flat plane nestling in the boughs of a world tree). Anyway, these folks got here, and then they split into a bunch of different clans and minor kingships. These groups are roughly split between the raiders (Vikings - they don't call them Vikings, but that's what Viking roughly translates to) and Baendur (non-Vikings? I guess? Schmucks-Who-Get-Raided was too wordy for them, I suppose). Anyway, it also covers the fact that the end of the world is this big fight called Ragnarök.

(Did you know that this adventure is Norse-inspired? The writers really want you to feel that Norse theming). And this leads into my first gripe: Can we get a pronunciation guide? Yeah, I know, I can Google a lot of this and cobble my own together, but if you're going to put a bunch of diacritical marks in my gaming material, could you please tell me how they are pronounced?

Next, we cover The Villains! There's like four.


The Matron - Secretly a Yotun (evil bunch who caused that cataclysm in the Lost Lands) but who has a disguise and some other crap going on. Littlefinger but with magic type.
Witchking - Tool of the Matron, and her puppet. Yay.
Mirgal - Superpowerful magic boi who kind of accidentally blew up the Lost Lands but sacrificed themselves to evac the not-Vikings and Vikings to Grimnir. Later it's explicitly called out that he never shows up, so...how is he a villain?
Hel - Goddess of the Dead. Daughter of the Matron and Mirgal, more of a villain by circumstance than a real bad guy.

And this brings me to my second complaint, which is really around layout. For me to really care about the characters, I need a context to place them in. And that means that I need to know what the hell is going on in the adventure. What are the villain's goals and intent? What is their plan? How do the heroes cross their path?

A list of names with a sidebar cautioning me to avoid spoiling the twist? Less than useful, y'all. I don't know what the twist is; Hel, I don't even know that there's a twist.

Next we get a quick description of the World of Grimnir (It's big! It's primal!), the History of Grimnir (read the Player's Guide! Not kidding - that's the advice), and the Primal Powers (three gods which are still sort-of-extant). And then we get a really beautiful map - and I mean gorgeous. It's annoyingly split between two pages, but here they are:

*scrubbed*

*scrubbed*

Check out that freaking cartography. Absolutely gorgeous! And I love how they've worked in fjords everywhere on the main continent and surrounding islands. That's subtle, but the nature of the fjords dictates the nature of longships in our real world, and including it here is a really good call.

After that we get into the Stone Court - gods trapped as living statues. Why haven't the primal powers let them loose? Because the plot had to happen! Why are you asking such silly questions?

After that, we get into the afterlife for the various raiders (you want to go to the Halls of the Slain), go more into detail about the raider / Baendur dichotomy, and a brief coverage of a bunch of locations. Then we go over the various clans of the Grimnir, including a picture of their shield art, where they live and their view of Ragnarok (I'm not going to put the ö in every time; my apologies).

Why should I care about these folks? No idea. What role do they play in the story? No idea! Did I retain any of that information? No idea! Again, if I don't have a good idea about why they matter, I'm not going to care.

So it's a good thing that the very next section is the Adventure Overview! And it actually overviews the adventure! Hallelujah (or Norse equivalent)!

BioWare games have an interesting structural model called the "Lakes and Rivers" model. The idea is that each lake is an area in the story the PCs are able to explore and mess around in until they're ready to progress the plot. Then they go in a river that funnels their choices into a fairly tight decision set. Once you've completed a river, you get dumped into the next lake.

This product does you the favor of calling this structure out, showing what lakes get unlocked by what rivers.

BioWare games are also famous for their variable endings, based on the decisions of the characters. In Raiders of the Serpent Sea, they helpfully flag meaningful decisions that will affect the outcome with a little red raven symbol. There's also a little tracker sheet in Appendix B that helpfully lets you keep track of all of those decision points.

Next up we have a quick section on starting the campaign, including exactly two hooks: 1) A bunch of seers sent you on an expedition to a tower, and 2) Hey! Y'all wanna go check out that tower? I really would have wanted more options, but I suppose as long as have more than one, it works?

After that, we have a bunch of "floating" encounters. Except, they're not really floating encounters - most of these are situated firmly in various other chapters. So why are they in the introduction, and not in the chapters they go in?
*scrubbed*

Also...*scrubbed*, does it feel like this is starting to drag? I feel like this is starting to drag. Time for something completely different:
*scrubbed*

Ah, Monty Python. Never change, you mad wankers.

Now, where was I? Oh yes, I'm STILL ON THE FREAKING INTRODUCTION. Moving on:

We get a quick plug in for the epic backgrounds. There are more details in the Players' Guide, but this section details how each background weaves into the story. This isn't innovative (they did the same thing in Odyssey of the Dragonlords), but it's well done and DMs are encouraged to expand on the backgrounds and their impact. There are only a couple that are poorly written, most notably the Royal Heir and the Cursed One. Both of which have some plot holes in them so big I feel they need a visual reference:

https://verysimpl.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Sarlacc-you-don-t-have-to-go-to-a-galaxy-far-far-away-to-see-these-5-real-life-star-wars-aliens-755938-300x222.jpg

After that we get a quick guide to the adventure's chapters by level:
*scrubbed*

Finally, to close this beast out, we get a quick discussion of how to adjust party level, party size, inspirational media, content warnings, etc. Except all of that is mostly "Go look at the GM's Reference, ya nerd." So...not a great use of page space here.

And that, blessedly, is the end of the Introduction. As an aside, I was curious, so I checked the 5E PHB, and the entire equipment section is only 80% of this book's introduction (20 pages, vs 25). Truly, these are the times that try men's souls2.

My general verdict is that the Introduction accomplished its goals, but did so in the most meandering way possible. I'm going to harp on this a bunch during this review, but layout matters. My eyes glazed over the third time they started talking about some random god without giving me any context for how many *scrubbed* I should give. This is partially a stylistic thing, but I think it's more than possible to have a tightly woven story without wasting your reader's time. And if you're going to meander, the trip had better be worth the view. Fortunately, there was some good material here, once we have the context to appreciate it. My gripe, to be clear, is the organization and presentation of the material, not necessarily the material itself. This world sounds amazing! Primal Vikings, raiding across the Serpent Sea! Hell yeah! I'm definitely grabbing a bunch of monsters from Planegea to throw in here, because frankly, these two settings sound like peanut butter and chocolate! The gods have (mostly) turned to stone! Kickass! Now my cleric player has a built in reason to adventure! It sounds amazing!

It just sucks that I had to dig that hard to get to the good stuff.

Alright, friends! I've got to go handle a bunch of not-chinchillas who broke out of a not-ranch, but in the meantime I would love to see your criticisms, thoughts, and feedback! Let me know if I'm wrong, or if you just have questions!

1 Yeah, I know Colville isn't that bad, but I took three weeks off the forums, so I have an excess of snark to work through. If you wanted zero snark, let me know in the thread. No guarantees.

2 Look, I'm sure that if Mr. Paine had to endure either a) the horrors of Valley Forge, or b) a pack of ex-Bioware devs info-dumping on him for 25 pages, he would have probably chosen Valley Forge. I don't feel like that's a controversial statement, but I invite spirited debate.

[Libertad]

*scrubbed*

[Sparky McDibben]

Obligatory bump.

Thanks, Libertad!

Alright, let's hop into Chapter 1: Into the Unknown.
*scrubbed*

The rough outline here is that the heroes have been hired to an expedition led by a guy named Hrolf. This expedition, set out by the volv (seers, a sort of supra-clan organization), is going to investigate a tower. This tower is notable because a bunch of the volv have been dreaming about it, and they want the expedition to figure out why.

While there, they're attacked by other raiders, the Whar clan, who burn all their longships. The PCs (and Hrolf) trek across the Fanged Sands to Nowhere, a community of outcast raiders, where they need to get a ship. Once they have a ship, they head back out on the Serpent Sea.

That's pretty easy, right? Can't be much going on here.

Well, it's 37 pages, so buckle up.

The chapter starts with the PCs on the ship, with Hrolf, the Hero of a Hundred Raids. Hrolf has carved out his own eye as an offering to the Well of Wisdom. Notably, his own Wisdom score is a 14, according to his statblock, so I'm guessing he wasn't wise enough to ask for a ring of three wishes when he made the sacrifice. At any rate, he has a quarter-page write-up in the NPC section that I won't subject you to, because they really could have boiled it down to "What happens when you cross the most Viking-y Viking to ever go a-viking with Han Solo."

DMPC Mentor! Much like Nihlus in Mass Effect, or Duncan in Dragon Age, Hrolf is a powerful companion to whom Bad Things happen later on. The DMPC mentor is responsible for filling in some gaps through dialogue, explaining the early parts of the plot the players, and pointing them to early, vital clues if they miss them. Fortunately, they almost always end up dead.

We don't really get many scenes with Hrolf in the opening, which sucks because he's going to be important later. There's some optional NPCs we can RP with too, but they all die in like two pages, so we're not going to bother with them. Instead, the adventure drops the PCs in, tells the DM to let them RP for a bit on this longship, and then a storm hits! Hooray! Our first challenge for these 1st-level characters will be non-combat but action-oriented! That's awesome, and good low-level design.

Basically, if you're not tied to the ship, you have to make a DC 12 Acrobatics check to avoid getting hurled into the sea. But the raid banner comes loose from the ship and starts flying away. Hrolf exhorts the PCs to catch it - which they can attempt, but doing so puts them at disadvantage for the Acrobatics check. This gives the PCs a choice, and lets them make an early name for themselves, but doing so almost certainly puts them in the drink for a bit, and there's no real mechanics given for getting out of the drink.

The deal with the raid banner is that it puts them under the protection of the volv, those supra-clan seers I mentioned earlier. Nobody screws with the volv, because you'll get hella-nasty cursed. Without the banner, the expedition is in peril from other raiding clans.

Next up there's a quick interlude where two expedition members try to murder Hrolf. They've been mind-wiped by someone, but remember being paid. This feels unnecessary to me - the deaths of the crew at the tower is a big emotional beat that should motivate vengeance, and this encounter weakens that by casting doubt on the expedition's unity. After all, if some members of the expedition might be enemies, losing them isn't such a big deal, is it?

Next, though, we get to this tower! Yippee, the plot advances! However, I have a brief rant about map design. Here's the map for this dungeon:

*scrubbed*

My problems here:


Why is everything so brown?
Where the hell are the exits from Area 2? If you read the key, you'll know, but otherwise it looks like a dead end
Why are there no windows?

Please stop using photorealistic map design. It doesn't convey the information that I want conveyed (how big is the room, where are the exits, and where is the cool stuff), and instead conveys information I would prefer to make up for myself (the color scheme, etc). Also, if you're going to have the PCs move out of sync with the levels (that is, the adventure expects the PCs will start on level 1, go to level 2, come back to level 1, etc.), a side cut-away view is useful.

Rant complete; moving on.

The initial arrival is mostly conveyed in boxed text. As a DM, I mostly skip boxed text, so this adventure has been difficult for me to grok. There's also the problem of unnecessary information. For example, the adventure states: "There are no signs of the beautiful gardens and ponds that once graced the grounds of Mirgal’s tower." At the risk of sounding pedantic...why the hell include that line? If it's not there and will never come up, what does it add?

So, about that exit from area 2 - it's skill-locked behind a DC 12 Investigation check. This raises the question of: what happens if nobody passes the check? The adventure is mum about that, and just sort of blithely assumes everyone will make it. Do NOT put necessary clues to something behind a skill check. Bad designers!

Hrolf stays in the entrance as he and some others are shifting rocks around to open up the first floor, but he encourages the PCs to explore the rest of the dungeon. Good job, Hrolf! Get these schlubs to find all the traps for you!

Next up - some wicker rats! The "wickers" are basically a creature type in this world that are constructs. They can look like anything, and are sort of just here because the tower's former owner specialized in making them. There's also a young girl! The young girl has no idea why she was here, having been abducted by aliens er....she saw bright lights that flared and took her. Definitely not aliens. Certainly not.

Anyway, the text informs us that this girl is named Siddhe, and that she's really important, but not till Chapter 3, so "encourage the heroes to keep her close."

Look, I don't know about you guys, but my players are probably going to assume this kid is a demon or something and either stick to her like glue to avoid getting charmed, or they're going to abandon her in the wastes. Wish me luck!

The rest of the dungeon is mostly OK, with the PCs having to avoid mechanical traps (in the centuries-old buried tower that belonged to a mage, who apparently trapped the hell out of his staircases), and acquire bits of information, several of which are meaningful to the volv later on. Unfortunately, the whole thing is mostly devoid of meaningful navigational choices - it's mostly just a series of rooms. The stuff in the rooms is interesting, I suppose, but I feel less like you're exploring and more like you're playing one of those "find the clue" games.

After this, the heroes rejoin Hrolf right as the Whar clan attacks! Hrolf has gotten into a fight with some other wicker constructs, and has been badly wounded (this is reflected in his statblock, which is still a beefy CR 4), but races with the PCs back to the shore. Once they get back to the shore, however, "Siddhe will swiftly call Hrolf’s attention to the carnage surrounding them and he bellows orders to his remaining warriors to form a shield wall."

Can I ask why the foundling is pointing out to the "Hero of a Hundred Raids" that they're under attack? Young miss, this is Hrolf D. Viking, Esquire! If anybody knows what an attack looks like, it should be him!

Also, good luck finding the stats for a shield wall - it's not in the monster section (Appendix E), but in the raiding section (Appendix A). I suppose this is a good time to point out that this book doesn't have an index? Thank God for Ctrl + F.

But anyway, this big set piece battle unfolds. Hrolf and the rest of the raiders, plus the PCs on one side, and 7 raid archers, 4 raiders, and a raid druid on the other.

The enemies fight through the other raiders, and only then target Hrolf and the PCs. Ideally, the adventure states, only Hrolf and the PCs should survive.

And then the adventure says:

https://media.tenor.com/AXMEDSnkaH4AAAAC/godzilla-let-them-fight.gif

OK, but...this is the dumbest possible way to run this fight. You, the DM, are going to be embroiled in a ton of hot NPC-on-NPC action, while the PCs look on, patiently wondering why they gave up their Saturday to do this.

The desired end state is: the Whar clan has fled, only the PCs and Hrolf have survived, the longships are burned, and the PCs feel a sense of ownership over the victory.

I hate to waste y'all's time, but I want to do a brief tangent on how to rework this:

We need the PCs to take center stage here in a big way without drawing a lot of fire. So instead of the raiders all showing up on shore at once, the druid emerges in dire wolf form (which is trippy, because no one in Grimnir has seen a wolf) and howls a challenge. Hrolf accepts, banging his shield, but tells the PCs that aboard his ship are some fire arrows of his own - if they can get there and string his massive war bow, they can start setting the attacking vessel alight, and maybe force it to withdraw.

As Hrolf moves to engage the wolf, a spear erupts from the back of one of the allied raiders - a group of four enemy raiders have flanked them, and the allies are getting swarmed! Siddhe is screaming as she watches men cut down before her!

Now the PCs have two goals they can't do sequentially. If they engage these other raiders (suitable for any martial characters), the longships will be completely engulfed in flames by the time they're done. If they opt to get the fire arrows first, Siddhe will get kidnapped!

Hrolf gets wrecked by the end of round 4 with the dire wolf druid, who winds up ripping off Hrolf's leg at the knee. This is important because now Hrolf can't easily solve combat encounters for the PCs in later chapters. It also gives the PCs a nice little arc to get Hrolf some prosthetics or powerful healing (which could be found with the Bad Guys!).
At any rate, the PCs ultimately find themselves alone with just Hrolf, Siddhe, and some corpses. Hrolf asks the PCs to help him burn the corpses, and the PCs get to see three valkyries show up (the book uses the George R.R. Martin Spelling Trick of changing like one vowel in several words, so it's presented as "valkry").

Hrolf insists that no rescue is coming, and insists on heading overland toward the bandit community of Nowhere. Assuming the PCs come along, the next several days are them walking to Nowhere. There is exactly one fight and some treasure, coupled with some environmental obstacles. It's not badly done.

After that, we get to Nowhere, and look! It's another...

Town Full of Villains. Much like Omega from Mass Effect 2, or the Undercity in Dragon Age 2, this is a town full of some minor side quests, a big hurdle the PCs have to overcome, and a bunch of foreshadowing about the next phase of the adventure. It's an effective trope, and the adventure handles it well.
Nowhere takes up 20 whole pages all on its own. The PCs main goal is to get a ship, and there are at least three different ways of getting one:


Manipulate one of the three raider-captains into a drinking contest, with their ship as the prize
Steal a ship
Buy a ship (least likely)

The route the adventure clearly expects is that the PCs will manipulate a raider captain into a drinking contest and emerge victorious.

This is, that I can find, never spelled out as an option for the PCs. You pick up a bunch of information about the various raiders around town, but it's a helluva leap from "Lurx is in love with a woman at a colony they just raided" to "Let's use Lurx's lover as leverage to trick them into a drinking contest to win their ship!" Also, the rules for how to run a drinking game are not in this book, but in the (you guessed it!) GM's Reference. Guys, c'mon.

Also, what the hell are the heroes staking as a prize? They've got some treasure but not much, probably less than 1,000 gp. My guess is that the PCs will hear about the raider captains' troubles, and then go to them and offer to help them out in return for a ship. I'd recommend coming up with some side-quest options for each captain, which shouldn't be difficult. One of them is getting old and is worried about his dad, one of them wants to help their lover's colony, and one of them murdered their brother. Easy-peasy.

Stealing a ship has a handy little structure spelled out that's mostly combat, but some of the random encounters actually help the heroes, which is a fun bit. The adventure spells out several consequences to that, which are outstanding!

Buying a ship costs 6,500 gp, which is functionally impossible, although there is a wonderful sidebar on leasing the ship. Yes. Apparently that's an option. Who knew?

But aside from the ship drama, there's a lot to do in this town. There are 13 locations spelled out, including a Runethrower (fortune-teller) who gives the PCs crucial information on their Epic Goals! There's an interesting tension between the underclass and the jarl, which could be very interesting for politically-minded PCs, and options for how the friends the PCs make in town can influence their crew for the ship!

Overall, it's well done! There's like one thing that I cannot stand about this section, though, and it's these:
*scrubbed*
*scrubbed*

Now, you're probably thinking, "Oh, crap, Sparky's about to go off on another tangent about map design again." Well you would be wrong, Dan. In fact, I am upset for a completely unrelated issue, my dislike for photorealistic maps having been well-established. I'm upset because these are full-page maps for a location in which, as far as I can tell, there is never a need for a map. Nothing but roleplaying happens here. You couldn't have spent this page space on something useful, design team?? Why are these here?

Alright, regardless, the PCs eventually get a ship and sail off onto the Serpent Sea! Well, not quite. Those Whar raiders who ambushed them at the tower decide that they've had one ambush, yes, but what about a second ambush! Truly, these guys are masterfully cunning.

Anyway, the PCs fight their way out, and get a raven from the volv, who are like, "Hey, those Whar guys? They live here." The adventure adds a location to the PCs map, which Hrolf D. Viking, Esquire, asks the PCs to check out.

Oh, you remember that kid, Siddhe? Well, if the PCs try to leave them behind, they sneak aboard. Congratulate the PCs on this other DMPC they've acquired!

My overall feelings about Chapter 1 are mixed. Layout issues continue to drag down what could be amazing material, and the poor communication from the text to the players makes pixelbitching a real concern. That being said, there's more than enough awesome here to make it worth your while. I mean, who doesn't want to steal a Viking longship?

Next time, friends, we will set sail on the Serpent Sea, and put some raiding in this Raiders of the Serpent Sea campaign!

*scrubbed*

[Libertad]

Thanks, Libertad!

Glad to know my zero-substance posts still get positive traction. To make up for it, I do have some more detailed commentary.




DMPC Mentor! Much like Nihlus in Mass Effect, or Duncan in Dragon Age, Hrolf is a powerful companion to whom Bad Things happen later on. The DMPC mentor is responsible for filling in some gaps through dialogue, explaining the early parts of the plot the players, and pointing them to early, vital clues if they miss them. Fortunately, they almost always end up dead.

Is there anything in character creation that ties Hrolf to one or more of the PC's backstories? I know how they did this in Odyssey with several NPCs. It sounds to me like he's Duncan; no prior history with the PC(s), he just shown up.


We don't really get many scenes with Hrolf in the opening, which sucks because he's going to be important later. There's some optional NPCs we can RP with too, but they all die in like two pages, so we're not going to bother with them. Instead, the adventure drops the PCs in, tells the DM to let them RP for a bit on this longship, and then a storm hits! Hooray! Our first challenge for these 1st-level characters will be non-combat but action-oriented! That's awesome, and good low-level design.

Basically, if you're not tied to the ship, you have to make a DC 12 Acrobatics check to avoid getting hurled into the sea. But the raid banner comes loose from the ship and starts flying away. Hrolf exhorts the PCs to catch it - which they can attempt, but doing so puts them at disadvantage for the Acrobatics check. This gives the PCs a choice, and lets them make an early name for themselves, but doing so almost certainly puts them in the drink for a bit, and there's no real mechanics given for getting out of the drink.

Does having proficiency in water vehicles help for any of these longship-related checks?




After that, we get to Nowhere, and look! It's another...

Town Full of Villains. Much like Omega from Mass Effect 2, or the Undercity in Dragon Age 2, this is a town full of some minor side quests, a big hurdle the PCs have to overcome, and a bunch of foreshadowing about the next phase of the adventure. It's an effective trope, and the adventure handles it well.
Nowhere takes up 20 whole pages all on its own. The PCs main goal is to get a ship, and there are at least three different ways of getting one:

But aside from the ship drama, there's a lot to do in this town. There are 13 locations spelled out, including a Runethrower (fortune-teller) who gives the PCs crucial information on their Epic Goals! There's an interesting tension between the underclass and the jarl, which could be very interesting for politically-minded PCs, and options for how the friends the PCs make in town can influence their crew for the ship!

I agree with you, I liked this about Mytros in Odyssey, I like seeing it pop up in other adventures.


Now, you're probably thinking, "Oh, crap, Sparky's about to go off on another tangent about map design again." Well you would be wrong, Dan. In fact, I am upset for a completely unrelated issue, my dislike for photorealistic maps having been well-established. I'm upset because these are full-page maps for a location in which, as far as I can tell, there is never a need for a map. Nothing but roleplaying happens here. You couldn't have spent this page space on something useful, design team?? Why are these here?

If I had to guess they probably had some action/combat encounters planned out, but didn't have the time or room to put it into the final product, but they still wanted to keep the maps.


Next time, friends, we will set sail on the Serpent Sea, and put some raiding in this Raiders of the Serpent Sea campaign!

*scrub the post, scrub the quote*

Heck yeah, gimme some more Nordic goodness!

[BeholderEyeDr]

So glad to see you back up to your usual shenanigans, Sparky! Following this with interest.

[animorte]

The Introduction has a lot of work they're trying to do. They need to introduce the DM to the world, distinguish it from the baseline heroic fantasy, setup what is going on, what the characters are supposed to be doing. It does this...eventually.
Well, they say the fantasy genre requires a higher word count strictly for world-building.

And this leads into my first gripe: Can we get a pronunciation guide?
They needed to trade off something to balance the word count.

sacrificed themselves to evac the not-Vikings and Vikings to Grimnir. Later it's explicitly called out that he never shows up, so...how is he a villain?
Sounds more like a martyr.

Check out that freaking cartography. Absolutely gorgeous!
We know where the budget went. Did I already say that?

Again, if I don't have a good idea about why they matter, I'm not going to care.
That's a good rule of writing anything. Make the reader actually give a crap.

I really would have wanted more options, but I suppose as long as have more than one, it works?
Looks like another one of those "why should I care" moments. Eh, I can make hooks myself.

It just sucks that I had to dig that hard to get to the good stuff.
I'll see if I can spare a shovel.


! Our first challenge for these 1st-level characters will be non-combat but action-oriented! That's awesome, and good low-level design.
I've done this plenty before. Create some imperative circumstances that get creative!

Please stop using photorealistic map design.
You made the same statement on the last review. Leave the fancy cosmetics to things I don't actually require for navigation.

Look, I don't know about you guys, but my players are probably going to assume this kid is a demon or something and either stick to her like glue to avoid getting charmed, or they're going to abandon her in the wastes. Wish me luck!
Perhaps an adjustment that she was imprisoned against her will. "Thanks for the rescue. Here's my contribution." Yeah, good luck! :smallcool:

I suppose this is a good time to point out that this book doesn't have an index? Thank God for Ctrl + F.
:smallconfused: :smalleek:

How I Would Do It
I was definitely thinking something along the lines of her in danger of being kidnapped and the PCs must navigate to safety, Hrolfe bringing up the rear. But I haven't read it, so your way sounds much cooler.

Also, the rules for how to run a drinking game are not in this book, but in the (you guessed it!) GM's Reference. Guys, c'mon.
Classic marketing! Each of their sources points to another source of theirs.

options for how the friends the PCs make in town can influence their crew for the ship!
This reminds me about some of those social interaction structures discussed in that other thread of yours.

That being said, there's more than enough awesome here to make it worth your while. I mean, who doesn't want to steal a Viking longship?
It's starting to give me quite the vibes: Kratos visits Bilgewater.

[Sparky McDibben]

Glad to know my zero-substance posts still get positive traction. To make up for it, I do have some more detailed commentary.

I mean, you did me the favor of letting me know people still read these! I'll absolutely say thanks! :smallsmile:


Is there anything in character creation that ties Hrolf to one or more of the PC's backstories? I know how they did this in Odyssey with several NPCs. It sounds to me like he's Duncan; no prior history with the PC(s), he just shown up.

Does having proficiency in water vehicles help for any of these longship-related checks?

Nope and nope, sadly. I really don't like how they handled Hrolf - he could have been an excellent character, and they way they have him described feels more "cardboard cutout" than "actual person." The water vehicle proficiency only comes in when you are piloting a longship, though personally, I'd let that give them advantage on a check or two, especially if the PCs background is in ships.


Heck yeah, gimme some more Nordic goodness!

Sure thing!


So glad to see you back up to your usual shenanigans, Sparky! Following this with interest.

Thanks, Doc! Glad to see you!


Well, they say the fantasy genre requires a higher word count strictly for world-building.

But, and this is the thing that I find really annoying, it doesn't have to. The devs didn't need to include this much detail, and they definitely should have communicated the core elements of worldbuilding in a bullet list or something. Moreover, having to mine lore from three different documents is an absolute garbage methodology.


I'll see if I can spare a shovel.

You've already loaned me three! :smallbiggrin:


I was definitely thinking something along the lines of her in danger of being kidnapped and the PCs must navigate to safety, Hrolfe bringing up the rear. But I haven't read it, so your way sounds much cooler.

This is a good idea! I think the core of it is to either a) complicate a "just combat" scenario or b) give them a goal other than "kill all the bad guys." The video-game training from the devs in these is very evident.


It's starting to give me quite the vibes: Kratos visits Bilgewater.

That's actually a pretty solid summary!

Alright, y'all! Now let's start in on Chapter 2. It's called the First Saga, and is 55 pages long, with a LOT going on. It's broken up into seven subsections. This is the largest chapter in the book (only the monster appendix is longer, at 76 pages). So rather than do the whole thing in one go on my day off, I'm going to break these up and do them piecemeal.

Remember how we talked about the "lakes and rivers" model? Well, this is the first big lake. The PCs are out on the ocean, and the adventure highlights to the DM what plot threads are available to chase down:


Raid the Whar Camp - Due to the volv's in-volv-ement, the PCs know where the scummy druid who burned their crap and killed their NPC cannon fodder friends lives
Hrolf says the PCs need to get a proper raiding banner so they aren't considered mercenaries
They can explore the High North (there are no real links to this?)
Take Siddhe to the Volv at the Well of Wisdom (main story continuation)


To this, there is basically a villain random encounter: the Witch-Shrine. We will get to this last, but it has some of the most bafflingly railroaded adventure design I've seen since Hoard of the Dragon Queen.

There are a few motivational problems with these. 1) Why is it bad to be mercs? Sure, we can let the PCs take slaves (thralls, yes, this is a real thing, and it is exactly as mind-bogglingly stupid as it sounds), but you guys don't want to be mercenaries, do you? 2) There's exactly one thread that lets the PCs know there's something going on up north; otherwise you have to let the PCs talk to the scummy druid-boi. So, uh, yeah. The adventure lets you know, "They can go here and it'll be cool!" but never really communicates that to the players. Can someone tell the devs that TTRPG motivations usually need to be associated and in-character?

So today we'll be focusing on the Whar raid. The motivation here is vengeance. This is the scummy druid who (presumably) kicked their butts back in Chapter 1. The Whar are a growing power in the Serpent Sea, and their ambitions puts the PCs on a collision course with them. The PCs target is not the main Whar homeland (that's far to the north), but they have a small outpost and a hunting camp established on Whiterak. That's what the PCs will be raiding. Another key piece of context is that the scummy druid is actually the jarl's brother, so killing him could start a blood feud.

So, the adventure lays out how the PCs go about finding the scummy druid's outpost. First, they find a hunting camp. The hunters, upon seeing the PCs in their new ship which they don't recognize, immediately flee, because plot! One of the hunter groups tries to buy the other one time to warn the outpost by boarding the PCs' ship. (Is it just me, or could this adventure really have benefitted from reaction rolls?)

The PCs chase the other hunters (in a boat) back to the main outpost. That sounds awesome! How do you run a chase at sea? Good question! ...moving on.

If the PCs lose the hunters they were tracking (how?) then the adventure says "have them wander the sea for a couple days but guide them in the right direction. After an encounter or two at sea, they find Whiterak." Oh thank goodness! I was beginning to worry that there might be stakes!

After that, the PCs move into the raid proper, but before that, it's another patented McDibben remix:

The hunters aren't automatically hostile, and the PCs can find out where Whiterak is through clever RP, betrayal, trickery, or straight up intimidation. If they instead do risk letting the hunters go to lead them to the outpost, you'll want to have a remixed copy of the chase rules from the DMG ready, just in case, maybe with some fun options like letting the hunters chum the waters to draw sea serpents or something.

Raids break down into three phases: scout, approach, and fight.

Scouting reveals information about the target, provided the target isn't alerted (which they will be if the hunters make it to Whiterak with a warning, the heroes are careless on their approach, or just unlucky). This is basically just a Perception check, and it reveals:
*scrubbed*

This is the outpost's statblock, and is admirably brief and informative. There's also a callout that the outpost has a couple of boats stashed under the cliff it backs onto, which means that when the PCs attack, there's almost certainly going to be some defenders who slip away to alert the main Whar camp far to the north.

This is good, but also, why not just have the druid cast animal friendship or use a trained raven or something to carry a message? Hell, if you really wanted to highlight the fairy tale type moods, you could simply cut to the Whar jarl feeling her brother's death if the PCs kill him.

Anyway, if the PCs get spotted during this part, skip right to the fight phase. When do the Whiterak sentries get to make Perception checks against the scouting PCs? Good question! ...moving on.

The approach phase is how the PCs get up to Whiterak. They can sneak up (but a Stealth DC is never spelled out), rush the outpost (although it's not explained, the "Open Space" entry on the outpost's statblock says 100 feet, so my guess is that's how far the PCs have to charge), or parlay with Gulli (the scummy druid) to instead fight a duel. Sieging the outpost is impractical, given that it will take a couple of weeks to exhaust the outpost's food and water, while the PCs have no fresh food on the island, and no source of clean water, either.

Finally, there's a fight. If the PCs make it inside, the Whar make their last stand at the shrine of Hel. Gulli the Scummy Druid puts up a good fight, using spike growth, wind wall, etc., to make the PCs' lives harder, while the rest of the raiders here form a shield wall for protection. Once two Whar raiders are down, Gulli tries to parlay.

This is full of interesting news, and honestly I feel more sympathetic to Gulli than I do to Hrolf at this point. Hrolf wants blood, and encourages the PCs to

https://media.giphy.com/media/XvQXEi09zfmcE/giphy.gif

If the PCs kill the Whar, it's less likely that they can ally with them later, and unless Hrolf is overwhelmingly convinced that the PCs are in the right, he'll get disgruntled and talk smack about the PCs behind their backs later.

So, good things:


An explicit raiding game structure, with levers I can pull to give the PCs choices in the fiction! Hurray!
An example of good layout! Yay!
A link (through Gulli) to the whole Whar plotline in the north! Yay!

The bad things:


Weak connectivity between scenes in the camp and the outpost
Hair-trigger alerts with poorly defined mechanical resolution (particularly round Stealth)
Inconsistent world-building, with the druid unable to use abilities we've already seen other spellcasters use.


Overall, this section is a clean 7 / 10. Good adventure, and I'm a sucker for a nice game structure.

Next time, we'll dig into the whole Whar plotline. See y'all then!

[Libertad]

*scrubbed*

[animorte]

Moreover, having to mine lore from three different documents is an absolute garbage methodology.
Agreed, definitely the part that strikes me as the greatest annoyance.

Can someone tell the devs that TTRPG motivations usually need to be associated and in-character?
So much of this! Though it looks they only want to give the illusion of options. :smallsigh: Depends on the information provide that "going north" option, I suppose.

That sounds awesome! How do you run a chase at sea? Good question! ...moving on. If the PCs lose the hunters they were tracking (how?)
You don't mind improvising mechanics, do you?

This is the outpost's statblock, and is admirably brief and informative.
Now, that looks like some presentable preparation. Gimme some more of that! If you haven't seen the One page dungeon contest (https://www.dungeoncontest.com/), I think you'd really appreciate it like I do.

Weak connectivity between scenes in the camp and the outpost
Hair-trigger alerts with poorly defined mechanical resolution (particularly round Stealth)
Considering the good things we've seen in this chapter, I don't mind making up for the bad.

[Sparky McDibben]

Evening bump!

:smallsmile:


Now, that looks like some presentable preparation. Gimme some more of that! If you haven't seen the One page dungeon contest (https://www.dungeoncontest.com/), I think you'd really appreciate it like I do.

LOVE some one page dungeons, friend! I scatter that *scrubbed* on my worlds like Alka-Seltzer at a pigeon parade.

Alright, moving on and still in Chapter 2, let's visit Rockpike Fortress. I don't know how they came up with these names - either Rockpike is a kind of polearm (in which case the name doesn't make that much sense), or it's referring to a breed of carnivorous fish (presumably, the rock pike) that does not appear in this adventure.

Anyways, tangent aside, the PCs arrive in the High North! They're here to...

Well, actually, that's a bit of a mystery. There's three different ways the PCs can get up here:

1) Gulli the Scummy Druid surrenders to the PCs to save his outpost. He leads them here to talk with his sister (the goal here is to find out why the Goddess of Death is having the Whar raiders target the PCs)

2) Hrolf encourages the PCs to take more vengeance on the Whar, and to find their main base - he's heard rumors that they're attacking Rockpike fortress (the goal here is vengeance - but like, more vengeance)

3) The PCs hear from the Orn (we'll get to it) that the Baendur (non-raiders) in Rockpike Fortress have a captive Valkyrie (the goal here is unspecific)

The hook they're following impacts the PCs decision set massively, as we'll see. The situation at Rockpike is thus:

a) The Baendur of Rockpike (led by a complete *scrubbed* named Cenric) built a fleet to challenge the raiders' control of the sea
b) Hel found out, and asked the Whar clan to intervene, creating a helmaw (Underworld gate-thingy) to get an entire Whar raiding party to Rockpike
c) The raiders destroyed the fleet, chased the Baendur back to their fortress and are now besieging the fortress

As we arrive, the PCs get a warning from their crew that this area is the land of one King Cenric, notable for having challenged the raider clans several times in the recent past. Cenric himself is a worthy and rare prize. By the way, does it count as human trafficking when a character is the treasure? Asking for a friend.

The PCs journey through a decent little pointcrawl, including some ravaged farms with dead farmers that rise as zombies unless the PCs burn them. There's a bit with faeries that goes nowhere, and then they get to the village of Frostwarren, where they can see a bunch of burnt-up longships (the remains of Cenric's fleet). (See, some magical jerks named the Ironwood Witches gave Cenric a bunch of ironwood - this legendary magic wood - to create a fleet to challenge the raiders, and were going to use magic to "jump" the fleet to the Serpent Sea).

So right now, the PCs have seen a couple examples of the Whar's depredations, which are violent and reckless. So when they reach the village and see the whole thing burnt to the ground, well, this is a great time to drive home the horrors of war and the culture of violence that permeates the raider clans. Especially since there are no bodies at the village - there are tracks leading west, into the mountains.

The PCs find a survivor of the Whar raid, a Baendur elite guard named Lan. And if you're wondering how a Diademed Battle Lord of Malkier wound up in Grimnir, well, not to worry.
*scrubbed*

Pictured: Not the Lan (https://wot.fandom.com/wiki/Lan_Mandragoran) we're talking about

This Lan is a woman, and a captain of Cenric's guard. She insists that the Baendur just want better farmland and more resources. #NotallBaendur, guys. She can journey with the party to Rockpike, where the tracks from the burnt-up village lead.

And at this point we zoom in on Rockpike itself. It's a pretty sturdy-looking keep, with a gatehouse and a couple layers of town to get through before you hit the main keep. Right now, it's besieged by the Whar, who are also keeping a watch on the trail leading from Frostwarren.

There are two encounters with automatically hostile Whar archers on the trail (not even a challenge? C'mon, guys) who just shoot the PCs and try to cut the various rope bridges that let the PCs come up. The actual encounter design here is solid, but I take issue with automatically-hostile enemies, especially since these guys haven't ever seen the PCs. They might know their names if that message from Gulli the Scummy Druid arrived, but otherwise, the only person they might recognize is Hrolf D. Viking, Esquire. And they're more likely to think that this legendary hero is bringing some tagalongs to help them crack open Rockpike once and for all!

So...yeah. Not a huge fan of the "straight to combat" style here.

After the heroes get through that, they meet Athils Vestemb, the jarl of clan Whar.

And right here, the PCs have a choice.

Mutually Exclusive Ally Options! See also, the Templars vs the Mages in Dragon Ages 2 - 4 The adventure lets you choose exactly one faction to support, and has exactly zero expectation that the PCs will intervene (after seeing how horrific combat is on the people here) to try to put a stop to the conflict.

Basically, the adventure assumes that the PCs will either a) help the Baendur take Rockpike, or b) help the Baendur lift the siege.

Before anyone asks, Hrolf is apparently conflicted, because he's still salty about the Whar raid, but also doesn't like Cenric and the Baendur. He can be persuaded one way or the other.

The payoffs here are either that a) the PCs get to loot Rockpike and fight their way through a pretty intense battle sequence, thus earning accolades from the Whar and convincing Athils to guide them to the helmaw for an audience with the Goddess of Death herself or b) the PCs will ally with Cenric, who sells them the Valkyrie he has enslaved in his keep if the PCs hunt down and exterminate the Whar.

This is apparently supposed to manifest as a moral dilemma. Unfortunately, this fails for me. In a moral dilemma that is actually fun, there is a choice to do the right thing at a significant cost, or to do the easy thing with a significant reward. It forces the characters to define what they care about. How far are they willing to go?

In this version, you can link up with a bunch of human-trafficking war criminals, or ... link up with a bunch of angel*-trafficking war criminals.

It's a choice between *scrubbed*, with no real "dilemma" in question.

The actual fights are pretty interesting, and I like the idea of a lasting choice with consequences, but neither option helps move the plot along, so it feel like empty calories.

First, we need to make this an actual moral dilemma. No more slavery - the raiders aren't taking thralls (this has limited impact on the actual adventure, per the GM's Reference), mostly because I can absolutely see that one player getting a little too gross with "Are any of them...female?" Ew. No.

I'm headcanoning that the raiders simply take some percentage from their raiding targets ("The fifth, I give you**"), and will absolutely burn and steal, but don't take people. Not because they're inherently good, of course, but because people are hard to move, hard to convert into cash, and will tend to fight you.

The sentries on the approach to the Whar camp aren't hostile, and will tentatively parlay with the PCs as they approach. Athils is now grimly set on keeping her word to Hel, but knows she'll lose a bunch of people on the attack. She sees the PCs as a great solution to the problem of "get us in the fortress." She mentions that Cenric is holding a valkyrie captive, and keeps her caged day and night. She's willing to fight on whatever terms the PCs will grant, and will enforce them on her clan, if they can get her inside Rockpike. Meanwhile, the Baendur issue a challenge - they've taken several of the Whar captive during their campaign, and will execute them at sunrise unless the Whar depart. So now there's a time limit and a secondary objective.

If the PCs can get inside and free the prisoners, and then fight their way to the tower, the next morning, Cenric presents the captive valkyrie. In return for leaving him and his subjects alone, he'll give them the valkyrie. The PCs now have an interesting choice to make, and can now vouch for Cenric as a ruthless war leader, but one who also knows when to make peace. They have the option of either finishing the job, negotiating an end to the conflict, or walking away.

As to those rewards, there are two payoffs. If they get to talk to Hel, they find out...nothing. She asks them some questions, and if Siddhe is present (because the PCs are the worst adoptive parents in the history of ever - who takes a kid for a brief chat with the Goddess of Death?), Hel gets agitated. That's it. No information on why they were targeted. Why the hell did you even include this as an option if you weren't going to give them any information?

The other payoff is that they walk away with Skuld, the captive valkyrie. Skuld is basically an empty trenchcoat. She "knows a lot about the nature of true death in Grimnir, but keeps that information to herself." There's just nothing here.

I hate to be a jerk, but this whole section feels like the devs were so proud of this moral dilemma they invented that they didn't bother with rewarding the PCs for doing it. I'm all for having the PCs make hard choices without a right answer, because those are often the most revealing choices to make. But this? This ain't it chief.

4 / 10 for "Gathering of Wolves" and "Rockpike" together. Excellent action and not much else.

See you next time for "Under the Ash" where things... go...

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/ActiveOrangeKarakul-max-1mb.gif

*They treat the valkyrie as angels in this and it drives me nuts. Valkyries were never depicted as winged, and they were servants of Odin, not liable to be bound on earth, even if you chopped their (nonexistent) wings off. This is just me being pedantic, though, not a knock on the campaign.

**If you get this reference, you're a wonderful human being. If you don't, you're still a wonderful human being.

[Libertad]

*scrubbed*

[animorte]

LOVE some one page dungeons, friend! I scatter that sh*t on my worlds like Alka-Seltzer at a pigeon parade.
So proud! :smallbiggrin:

Especially since there are no bodies at the village - there are tracks leading west, into the mountains.
Awfully suspicious, that. Either cannibals or outright "invading Russia in the winter."

So now there's a time limit and a secondary objective.
Now that's a creative approach I can appreciate.

There's just nothing here.
World-building? Immersion? Maybe a relevant "hindsight is 20/20" moment later? Idk...

They treat the valkyrie as angels in this and it drives me nuts. Valkyries were never depicted as winged, and they were servants of Odin, not liable to be bound on earth, even if you chopped their (nonexistent) wings off. This is just me being pedantic, though, not a knock on the campaign.
I recall attempting to fight those by the same name in God of War. They were winged, isolated, and an absolute **tch to deal with (aka waste of time) and not what I would refer to as angelic.

[Sparky McDibben]

*scrub the post, scrub the quote*

Not a problem, and thanks!


World-building? Immersion? Maybe a relevant "hindsight is 20/20" moment later? Idk...]

My guess is that Rockpike is supposed to foreshadow the Ironwood Witches as setting up conflicts and keeping the humans weak and divided. Unfortunately, it doesn't really accomplish that in my opinion - the writers are too invested in hiding their cards from the players.

Alright, friends, now lets get on with "Under the Ash," wherein the PCs find a settlement buried by hardened lava!

The motivation for going here is either


Hey, look at that big explosion in the distance! Let's check it out!
We need to get a clan banner so no one thinks we're mercenaries


I have a couple problems with these - for example, why the hell can't the PCs just go to the volv and get a volv banner, declaring them volv-o's or something? I mean, they had a banner like that at the start. There was a whole scene about it.

So we have a weak intro here, but a good DM can always seed calls for aid from survivors who've escaped. I can work with this.

The setup is thus: An ironthrall (someone who's been completely dominated by the Ironwood Witches) wizard caused the eruption. I can't find out exactly how, but it's implied that they opened a portal to the Plane of Fire. The raiders they brought with them devastated and raided the native Orn clan, stealing quite a lot of stuff. While the raiders feel distaste for the ironthrall's tactics, they're like, "Well, we're here anyway," and started pillaging.

Stay classy, guys.

After some shenanigans on the surface that include a flock of axe beaks, the PCs delve into the buried town, navigating in a diegetic pointcrawl!

Here's the map:
*scrubbed*

We even have a loop or two thrown in here! Huzzah! Now all we need is a random encounter table, an adversary roster, and an encounter die system and we might be cooking with Crisco! Or lava!

The pointcrawl is effective in delivering some useful items to the players, and effectively communicates that this whole (powerful) clan has been wiped out. The one thing I wish was placed better is an encounter with a wicker scout named Phrine. Phrine was summoned (along with like, all the other wickers) to where the gods (the ones who've been turned to stone) live, and saw a rainbow spear. Something happened with an emerald (I'm not being deliberately vague; the adventure doesn't give you much), and a massive light took hold in the sky. If the PCs try to line up dates, they can find out that this was the exact time that Siddhe was pulled to the Misplaced Tower.

So it sucks that the PCs can saunter right on by this content.

I'd recommend moving this encounter from T12 (where it currently sits) to T22 (to make sure the PCs see it).

The PCs, after clearing the town, encounter the thoroughly insane ironthrall wizard (who is equipped with gauntlets of ogre power), and can question or fight him. If they fight, magma mephits keep interfering, but otherwise it's not terrible (the wizard is a beefy CR 7, but against a 4th or 5th level party, he's going down fast).

The PCs can then move on and clear the Orn keep, fighting foreign raiders, and a loose salamander to rescue the (half-dozen) survivors.

And that's it. Nice little pointcrawl, fun little dozen-room dungeon. All in all, not bad. They get docked a few points for obfuscating some stuff, but otherwise, I'd say this is a solid 7 / 10.

Next up, the Well of Wisdom.

Content warning: human sacrifice. No, I am not kidding.

The setup for this location is that this is where the volv normally reside, so the PCs are bringing Siddhe to the volv, and reporting their mission. Unfortunately, a frost giant and a band of tussers (Yoten-descended individuals) have slain almost everyone here and drowned the area in a perpetual winter storm. This forced the rest of the volv to put out to sea, heading for Drifthall (we'll get to it).

So I guess the PCs had the option to ditch Hrolf this whole time, but if he was ditched, he shows back up here, camped out on the volv's doorstep. The PC's can start piecing together that something is very wrong from the jump. They get attacked by sabre-toothed tigers and tusser bandits.

And then, there's Jul.

Jul volunteered to be a human sacrifice, so that the volv could get their questions answered. This is what the adventure says about her:
*scrubbed*

*scrubbed*

Fun fact: the "Content Discussion" portion of the GM's Reference somehow omits the fact that murdering a helpless non-combatant is a thing. And not just a thing, a thing with a mechanical incentive attached! Brilliant job, boys!

If you had asked me to pick which was dumber, either a) enabling and incentivizing human sacrifice in a D&D game, or *scrubbed*, I would have chosen option a. Every time.

Look, this obviously ain't up my alley. But if you're going to include it, you need to a) let the DM know that it's there, preferably in flashing neon lights, and b) PUT IT IN THE CONTENT DISCUSSION section. *scrubbed*

Moving on from that delightful tidbit, we get into the icy caverns adjoining the Well of Wisdom. There's three polar bears, two hill giants, and a frost giant lurking about. Clever and careful heroes can defeat them in detail, and there's options for what they can tell the heroes if captured, too. All in all, good design there.

Then we get to the Well of Wisdom, where each PC gets a rune related to their Epic Background, and each one receives a minor benefit from it. The PCs can also choose to sacrifice to the Well - either up to 100 gp for inspiration, or a measure of their blood for one casting of speak with dead. Alternatively, if they sacrifice an eye to the Well, they get advantage on all Wisdom checks and saves, permanently.

Go big or go home, I guess. This is actually covered in the GM's Reference to call out self-injurious behavior. I'm OK with this part, because it's reasonably clearly communicated (Hrolf has actually sacrificed his eye here).

After that, we get a small bit about the Outpost of Lurx, relating to one of the bandit captains they could meet at Nowhere. This doesn't really go anywhere, so I'm skipping it.

Next time, though, we get into the Witch Shrine. It's going to be fun!

[animorte]

So we have a weak intro here, but a good DM can always seed calls for aid from survivors who've escaped. I can work with this.
That's sort of what I was thinking. It looks like there are several areas that require some DM creativity which, to be fair, is generally what I expected anyway.

(I'm not being deliberately vague; the adventure doesn't give you much)
Hey, there's one consistent theme!

Jul volunteered to be a human sacrifice... And not just a thing, a thing with a mechanical incentive attached! Brilliant job, boys!
Volunteering as a martyr doesn't necessarily strike me as TN, but ok. This must be another "hindsight is 20/20" moment. I would definitely have to flavor it a different way. By the way, is there an esrb on this?

Alternatively, if they sacrifice an eye to the Well, they get advantage on all Wisdom checks and saves, permanently.
How very Odin of them. I've played with a similar Well sporting wildly different consequences (good and bad).

I'm OK with this part, because it's reasonably clearly communicated.
That's what we like to see. Communication is key, as they say.

[Sparky McDibben]

Volunteering as a martyr doesn't necessarily strike me as TN, but ok. This must be another "hindsight is 20/20" moment. I would definitely have to flavor it a different way. By the way, is there an esrb on this?

As far as I can tell...no. And honestly, an upfront conversation about the appropriate ages, etc. would have been useful in the intro. Good callout, and thanks!

Alright, y'all, now we're going to delve into the Witch's Shrine. It is, I think, an almost perfect antithesis of fun dungeon design.

The setup here is that the prime antagonist, the Matron (also known as Boða - props to you if you know how to pronounce that, 'cuz I sure as hell didn't), is trying to get a better read on the PCs. She's sent this sort-of-illusion to get the PCs to appear before her, so she can mark them.

And hey, it's a...

Ah, the dream dungeon. Whether that's the Fade from Dragon Age: Origins or the weird alternate future in Dragon Age: Inquisition, there are sometimes entities that can't be fought in the real world, and must also be challenged in the dream world. Unfortunately, this version isn't nearly so well done as those.
Anyway, while your PCs are on the sea, a storm springs up. The weather clears a bit, revealing a small island with a weird shrine on it.

Now, if I were to lay out the principles of good dungeon / encounter design, I'd say they follow something about like this:

a) Multiple paths in and a strong, associated reason to engage
b) Allows the PCs to engage and disengage with the content at-will
c) Interesting rewards for overcoming obstacles with clever decisions
d) Fun denizens the PCs can choose to engage with, and choose the manner of engagement
e) Internal logical consistency
f) Meaningful decisions to make
g) Stakes

The Witch-Shrine cleverly subverts all of these. The dungeon itself is only 10 rooms, and occupies 5 pages, including the map. However, there are fun lessons scattered throughout on "How Not To Design A Dungeon!"

For example, if your players go, "This is obviously a trap," and attempt to sail away, the text advises you to have your players roll to see who gets tossed overboard by the storm. If someone is tossed overboard, you have to pull them back in. You have the PCs make this check six times, or until the PCs give up and recognize that they need to stay on the railroad tracks. There is exactly one door in, and once in, you can't leave.

So that's (a) and (b) in one nice little bit.

The authors put some nice little mundane items (and one magic item) in front of the PCs...all of which require varying DC Charisma checks to pick up. The heroes can only make four attempts before these items vanish. Why does the bad guy have a magic weapon and trinkets sitting out? Beats me. Why only four tries, especially if you have more than four players? Beats me. So this adventure gives the PCs the option to try for some interesting rewards...but then leaves it up to a (DC 20!) Charisma check, with zero character choices or player decisions involved.

So that's (c) down.

After that, the adventure puts an NPC in front of you who does not engage with the players except to stare at them and set out bowls of squirrel stew. Basically, this is a recipe for frustrated RP'ers who really want to talk to someone, but who get stymied by this individual. (By this point, the PCs should have picked up on the This Is No Ordinary House theme, so it's not even doing a good job underlining that point).

Also, remember how in the previous room, the PCs had to really try to interact with certain objects? Not here! Here they can have as much delicious stew as they want. But they can't interact with the only NPC at all, either physically or socially. So this is basically telling the PCs that "You can only interact with it if the devs thought of it," which I think is sort of contrary to the whole point of TTRPGs.

So that's (d) and (e) down.

The rest of the first floor is mostly in this vein. There is a cool scene where the PCs can watch one of the witches who inhabit this building in real life open a secret door...except the witches can see the PCs (that was who the NPC was in the last room I described), so why would they open a secret door in front of them?

After that, they mostly ride the railroad until they meet the BBEG in her original form, a terrifying Yoten! She monologues for a bit, then gets angry / scared about Siddhe (oh, Siddhe's here too, because of course she is!) and marks the PCs (which was the entire point of putting the PCs through this exercise).

The PCs can't do anything, can't really affect anything, and have zero meaningful decisions or input. So that's (f) down.

Finally, they get trapped by tree trunks and slowly throttled until they wake up in a shallow grave with a level of exhaustion. What happens if they dodge those tree trunks? They wind up in the same spot. In fact, if they die at all during the adventure, they wake up in the same spot.

And that's (g) gone.

Look, I know I'm complaining a lot. But I figure that material this good has to get good at some point...and I'm not seeing that yet. Layout continues to be an issue, and the devs seem to be obsessed with these video-game-style gimmicks.

Solid 3 / 10. Creepy but not actually scary, with no real choices, fun characters or action? Hard pass.

Next time, we set out for Drifthall, and another BioWare Trope Alert!

[Libertad]

I'm kind of hoping the weak point of this last section is more an exception than the norm. Between that and earlier weaknesses in the book (such as getting a clan banner or less-than-straightforward maps) it feels that the negative points are starting to add up.

[animorte]

It is, I think, an almost perfect antithesis of fun dungeon design.
This instantly made me laugh. Oooh boy.

Layout continues to be an issue, and the devs seem to be obsessed with these video-game-style gimmicks.
Overall, it absolutely gives the impression that it's attempting an entirely cinematic appeal. I read a thing once (paraphrased, of course):


"I want to be the DM and control the world. But I also want to be the players and decide how to interact with that world.
...
I have been informed that this is called Writing a Book."

Solid 3 / 10. Creepy but not actually scary, with no real choices, fun characters or action? Hard pass.
I considered presenting my own version of your "how I would do this" thoughts. :smallcool:


I'm kind of hoping the weak point of this last section is more an exception than the norm. Between that and earlier weaknesses in the book (such as getting a clan banner or less-than-straightforward maps) it feels that the negative points are starting to add up.
So far it looks like really cool ideas that are just getting lost in mechanical translation (dare I say, lack of experience).

[Sparky McDibben]

I'm kind of hoping the weak point of this last section is more an exception than the norm. Between that and earlier weaknesses in the book (such as getting a clan banner or less-than-straightforward maps) it feels that the negative points are starting to add up.

Yep. I really don't like doing reviews of material I don't like. Hopefully this turns around fast, 'cuz otherwise we're gonna wrap it up.



"I want to be the DM and control the world. But I also want to be the players and decide how to interact with that world.
...
I have been informed that this is called Writing a Book."

This made me laugh so goddamn hard!


I considered presenting my own version of your "how I would do this" thoughts. :smallcool:

Please do! I love hearing y'all's thoughts.

So, now we arrive at Chapter 3: Drifthall.

Drifthall is the... *sigh* goddamnit

Main Quest Hub!!! It's a big ol' social setting full of quest hooks, NPCs, moving, and shaking. See the Citadel from every Mass Effect ever, and Denerim, Kirkwall, and Skyhold from the Dragon Age series. Structurally, the Main Quest Hub is a tie point to which the party keeps returning, and allows them to see the ripple effects of their actions.
As I was saying, Drifthall is the main quest hub for the next act of the game. This section begins with the PCs pulling in and being met by the Seerguard (you'll never guess what they do!). The PCs are strongly hinted that you don't want to keep the weird seers waiting, and the next section is meeting the volv.

The volv are clearly meant to be the Fonts of All Knowledge in the setting, able to explain various things to the heroes if they missed them, and it's here that we start to see some things the heroes have uncovered in their travels coming to light. The volv can help explain the weird ironthrall messing about with the volcano, Helmaws, wolves, etc.

My only problem with this is that these threads have been spread over several months of in-game time, and so your players may not even remember them. Of course, the PCs can also miss a lot of this content, due to how some of these hints are structured, so they might not even know about some of this stuff. It's a good idea, but for something to stick with PCs, you need to reinforce it. It's not enough to show them one ironthrall, you need to show them several. It's not enough for one person to have seen a Rainbow Spear, they need to meet several (including preferably one of the PCs). The volv also take an interest in Siddhe and recommend the PCs leave her with them. This is a terrible idea (see below).

Anyway, the volv recommend the PCs meet all the clans, and help them solve problems. I would have thought that solving problems was down to the weird old human-sacrificing seers, but apparently the volv are trying out the gig economy.

This bit is where the adventure starts to show some of the shine that was promised! We get a bunch of clans, and each one has a problem or petition. There's an agenda they want to push. One wants to know what happened to their poisoned jarl, the Whar want to become a major clan, the Orn want justice for their torched home, etc.

How the PCs have behaved up till now comes home to roost. If they let King Cenric live, for instance, they risk censure by their peers (of course, that also means kidnapping, slaving, and murder are all full-throatedly endorsed by this society. Have fun squaring that circle, friends!). I am all for consequences of actions, but what really makes this section sing is that so many of the clan problems intersect other clans, bringing the PCs into those problems, creating a sort of Brownian quest-log accumulator.

Hopefully one of your players takes notes!

In addition to this, these characters start to act like real people, with flaws, vices, and blind spots. The Alljarl wants to let the old and the sick fight to the death so they die in battle, thus getting to go to the Halls of the Slain, and therefore increasing the number of warriors who come back to Ragnarok. This seems to be based on a misreading of their religious texts, and I actually like this. Hysteria-slapping an eschatologically-obsessed leader into sensible behavior seems like something heroes ought to be able to do - but it damages the PCs relationships with her.

(Oh, also the Alljarl is Hrolf's ex. That gets awkward).

There is only one big Yikes! moment here. See, if the PCs leave Siddhe here while they're out doing the next few quests, the next time they come back, Siddhe's dead! Along with another novice seer named Mera. The volv poisoned them both, but got attacked by an ironwood witch trying to stop them, and are now using the dead witch as a scapegoat for them killing two kids. This totally has to happen, because Plot!

Siddhe is actually Hel. See, Hel had a huge crush on this guy, Thonir the Almost God, back in the day. Hel is also, unfortunately, the Matron's daughter. So when the Matron killed her, Hel became the goddess of death. Now, though, she's trying to hook up with her ex, who's hanging out in the Halls of the Slain (which is not the underworld - different plane). So she created Hollow Hel, a simulacrum, to take over for her. She then tried to die bravely, and got it all mucked up, which is how she wound up in this world as Siddhe.

I think this is ridiculously convoluted for a setting where most of the gods are stone. Absolutely none of this is necessary. Which means someone had to dream up a plot that relies heavily on human / child sacrifice, and then publish it.
Now...I have to say that I'm about 110% done with this adventure and ritual sacrifice. The heroes have no chance to stop this, and the volv actively lie to them about what happened.

So here's a big ol' remix:

The whole point of Siddhe dying is that the PCs have to guide her spirit in the underworld, where she has to make a big choice: go be with Thonir, or stay the goddess of death. So, leaving aside all the DMPC shenanigans, etc., that the adventure has been pulling, I'd recommend having Siddhe stay with the PCs when they hit the Ironwood Witches at their main base (chapter 5, we'll get to it), just have inscriptions, or visions, or whatever, from the witches' divinations. Place this in an area the PCs cannot avoid it, since it is crucial information. The visions, et alia, inform the PCs that if Siddhe dies, and the heroes escort her spirit through the underworld, the chances of the witches plans coming to fruition plummet. When they return to Drifthall, the volv reluctantly confirm this. They've been desperately looking for a way to avoid this, but it is spelled out in the iron skeins of the child's fate. Siddhe has a choice to make, and how the PCs have treated her means that they have an opportunity to sway her...or to potentially cause her to desert them all.
This chapter sets up the next four, and it does so with decent material, well-thought-out NPCs, and good hooks. It goes some distance towards redeeming the preceding chapters. Unfortunately, this complete nonsense with two dead kids really unravels a lot of that for me.

Ending score on this chapter for me is 6 / 10 - there's more good than bad, but not by that much.

Stick with me next time, and we'll go over the next lake - the broader Serpent Sea!

[Libertad]

Gonna be real awkward for those gaming groups that leave Siddhe in a Tiny Hut, with an animal companion, familiar, or other type of minion or spell for safeguarding and the DM has to think up a way the poisoners manage to get around this.


There is only one big Yikes! moment here. See, if the PCs leave Siddhe here while they're out doing the next few quests, the next time they come back, Siddhe's dead! Along with another novice seer named Mera. The volv poisoned them both, but got attacked by an ironwood witch trying to stop them, and are now using the dead witch as a scapegoat for them killing two kids. This totally has to happen, because Plot!

What happens if the PCs are the types of weirdos who insist on having a helpless child accompany them everywhere? You know some gaming group is going to pull that off.

[Sparky McDibben]

Gonna be real awkward for those gaming groups that leave Siddhe in a Tiny Hut, with an animal companion, familiar, or other type of minion or spell for safeguarding and the DM has to think up a way the poisoners manage to get around this.

The adventure actually addresses this - the volv go get Siddhe, and then the next time the PCs show up she's dead. Hope you didn't want to make meaningful choices in your RPG.


What happens if the PCs are the types of weirdos who insist on having a helpless child accompany them everywhere? You know some gaming group is going to pull that off.

Believe it or not, I can't find any guidance on this anywhere. This once again raises the question of, "Who has this author been playing with?"

At this point, the PCs are turned loose onto another lake. They have three quests to accomplish, all called "Sagas." There's one where they go beat up the ironwood witches for a bit, another where they go try to talk to the giants to get them to stop killing people, and one where they go to the Underworld to find Siddhe's ghost and find out what's causing the dead to rise.

Alright - moving on to Chapter 4: Across the Serpent Sea. This chapter is chock full of side-quests, random locations to be explored, etc. It's sort of a mini-gazetteer to the Serpent Sea locations the PCs might explore as they go through the next three "Sagas."

This is all great. Seriously, 8 / 10, my only complaints being that formatting and layout make it difficult to use at the table, and I would have liked to see more of it (though 21 pages is fairly chonky). Several of these locations are tied into the PCs epic goals from their backstories, so you can seed those how you like.

Good job, developers!

Next up, we get to the Curse of the Ironwood Witches, which is chapter 5. The material here is set up for PCs of 7th to 10th level. This saga deals with the PCs exploring the witches' home in the Ironwood forest, and dealing with their crap. We learn several things:


The ironwood trees eat people, and spawn beetle swarms to affect the heroes.
The witches are serving Yoten (the evil chaos-folk who destroyed the Lost Lands pre-Grimnir)
The Witchking has been bringing monsters to Grimnir using a Rainbow Spear doomaflotchie

Overall, this chapter is fairly solid. It'll push the PCs to the limit, especially if they try exploring a lot. The adventure tries to get around the 5 minute adventuring day by relying on the carnivorous forest conceit, which ain't bad, but will probably get a little tiring. My complaint here is that there's no times given for navigating from point to point, but the game seems to think you should be rolling random encounters every hour or so.

Aside from that, the PCs explore a giant carnivorous forest, fight through the witch shrine, although this time as a proper dungeon, not a weird vision-quest, and then find the heart of the witches' power in the Ironwood Grove. From there, the PCs fight the Witchking, fight some witches, and then (hopefully!) burn down the ironwood grove.

From here, the PCs can journey onward, heading to either Drifthall, the giant quest, or anywhere they want to visit on the Serpent Sea.

I am pretty OK with this section 7 / 10 - the balance, formatting, and layout all need work, but it's miles ahead of the last few sections on narrative cohesion and appropriate material.

[Libertad]

I'd be interested in hearing some of the cooler side-quests in Chapter 4 if it won't detract too much from the rest of the review.

[animorte]

I know I'm behind, but I'll catch up soon, promise!

[Sparky McDibben]

I'd be interested in hearing some of the cooler side-quests in Chapter 4 if it won't detract too much from the rest of the review.

Sure thing, friend!

Let's see:


Help calm down a bunch of sentient, eight-legged horses who think the locals are butchering horses
Break up an arranged marriage by finding the person the bride really loves and dragging him back from a horrible delirium
Hunt down a wooly rhino in the frozen North
Stop a massive infection of "Iceblight."
Blackmail an adult black dragon who faked his own death at the hands of himself (magic ring) and then convinced the local peasants that he should be their ruler.
If any of the players have the Royal Heir background, they have a whole arc about finding their parents, which leads to a Red Wedding-style backstab.


There are actually a bunch of locations where the book gives you kind of a basic location. I've taken to thinking about these as plug-ins for other adventures. You can put the Market Games from Journeys to the Radiant Citadel in as the PCs have to prove their worth to a community, for example. Or drop in any of the dungeons from Into the Yawning Portal.

Next up is some palace-intrigue type nonsense with the giants! The basic setup here is that the frost giant jarl's wife has been replaced by an ironwood witch. She's trying to get the giants to go to war with the Vikings. The giants first attacked a tallfolk (goliath) clan near the water, and this is where the PCs enter the story.

The PCs initial motivation is to figure out a) what happened to this clan of tallfolk that lives up here and b) where that frost giant at the Well of Wisdom came from. Various hooks from Drifthall point here.

When they show up, the PCs find a village of tallfolk under siege from hill giants!

Dealing with the giants who've attacked the tallfolk village is actually pretty good! Interesting characterization sets the tallfolk apart from some of the other clans, including a potential companion for the PCs (Odur, whom they met in Drifthall) getting more respect if the heroes use their glory to talk up Odur.

The one thing I find baffling is that one of the things the tallfolk insist on is that the heroes drink this holy water to "bind their fates to that of the clan." The water is totally inert and doesn't do anything. However, I can definitely see heroes categorically refusing to drink...and if they don't drink, the scenario doesn't progress.

Other than that, it's compelling stuff.

Next there's an overland trek in the frozen north (mostly some narration broken up by random encounters), followed by the Glacier Fortress of the Frost Giant Jarl. I figure this is an intentional callback to Against the Giants, and good on them. Anyway, as said, the PCs are here to basically figure out what the hell is driving the giants to war.

Turns out the frost giant jarl's wife has been replaced by an ironwood witch and she's trying to get the giants on the war path. The PCs have to stop her. The tricky part here is proving that the jarl's wife is actually an imposter. While the jarl and the jarl's wife (now a witch) are estranged, the jarl loves her very much, and is not willing to let things escalate to combat. Yet.

There is exactly one path the heroes might choose to use here, but it relies upon a) asking the right questions at an eating game, b) lucky rolls to convince a frost giant to divulge his nightmares, c) finding that frost giant's journals in his closet, and then d) realizing that this proves anything at all. So, not the cleanest path imaginable.

The Three Clue Rule is your friend, kids. For each conclusion you want the PCs to reach, include three clues to it.

1) The jarl's wife is an Ironwood Witch.
a) The PCs see her eyes flash iron-color during the banquet - no roll required
b) The jarl's son complains of terrible nightmares; he's concerned for his dad, and additional interaction by the PCs may coax additional information out of him
c) PCs can use detect magic, truesight, etc., to see past the witch's disguise
d) Have the witch make a slight slip up that no one else could pick up on, but someone who'd fought the witches before would recognize - like a somatic gesture, etc.

Repeat this kind of model for each conclusion you want the PCs to draw in the adventure.

If the PCs figure this out, the best they can hope for is keeping the giants neutral in the coming Ragnarok. Otherwise, the giants will side with the witches.

For the most part, this is a decent palace intrigue scenario. Because of the multiple options to engage with the content, it's keyed like a dungeoncrawl, but all the palace-intrigue stuff is presented as a series of scenes. This results in the layout becoming muddled, but hardly unusable.

On the way back, the PCs fight the Witchking, plus one other witch and two wolventrolls. My only grip with this is that the Witchking has to escape unless it's the third time the PCs are fighting him. I hate that kind of railroady crap, but there you go, I guess.

By the way, if you're picturing the Witch King like this:

*scrubbed*

Come at me, Gandalf!

That's not quite what they're going for. The Witch-King in this adventure looks like this:

*scrubbed*

If you're wondering why his shield has teeth, it's because it can literally bite you, dealing 4d6 + 5 necrotic damage as one of his three attacks. He's no slouch!

Alright, friends, I'm going to come back next time to the Saga of the Dead! (By the way, for those of you playing the home game, we're on page 212 / 498, which puts us not even halfway through this thing!).

Stay frosty!

[Libertad]

Edit: wrong thread. Whoops!

That witchking artwork and shield is pretty badass, though.

[greenstone]

Wordy, badly organised, gorgeous artwork,...

Yep, sounds like a Modiphius product. :-)

[Sparky McDibben]

Edit: wrong thread. Whoops!

That witchking artwork and shield is pretty badass, though.


Wordy, badly organised, gorgeous artwork,...

Yep, sounds like a Modiphius product. :-)

It honestly reminds me of the old White Wolf lines - evocative art, an interesting world...and supremely garbage understanding of structure and information.

Alright, on to the Saga of the Dead. This is the last of the "three sagas" that key off of Drifthall. The core of the adventure is going to the Underworld to guide Siddhe into becoming Hel, thereby stopping the undead from siding with the Ironwood Witches at Ragnarok. The PCs also need to recover a horn that wakes up the gods for Ragnarok.

The Matron's agent down here, Regulus, has subverted Hollow Hel (the simulacrum that Siddhe left behind to mask her disappearance, also called, "Pulling a Bueller"). Now Regulus is more-or-less running things, and has Hollow Hel pretty much primed to believe that the PCs are bad guys. By the way, here's what Regulus looks like:

*scrubbed*

Now, to me that's just a slightly classier Duncan "The MAN" Fisher:

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/941348796293963776/GVVhgiNM_400x400.jpg

But, hey, what do I know?

This adventure suffers from a bunch of things, but let me highlight three:


Poor communication of stakes and information
Trying to cram level 8 adventurers into a linear plot line
A shift in the expected play style that edges into "Rug Pull" territory


These three things feed into one another, but I'll do my best to break them down.

The Underworld has two states: regular and hostile. A hostile Underworld happens when the PCs attack the dead, resolve situations through violence, and generally act rudely to the NPCs. Once the Underworld is hostile, it can't become regular again. Once hostile, the PCs' chances of being shut out of any meaningful decisions is dramatically escalated (the NPCs won't listen to you, everything just attacks, and you eventually get perma-banned from the Underworld).

The adventure does not communicate (that I can find) to the players that this is a possibility, or even that the PCs should not attack the zombies they see running around the Underworld. Remember that super-crucial horn that wakes up the gods? Never mentioned, either by the volv or by the other denizens of the Underworld. Most challenges have one (easily overlooked) clue that is gated behind a skill check, otherwise, the PCs have no idea what's going on.

There are clues to where Siddhe is located scattered all over the place, but several of them are skill-locked or rely on the PCs figuring out the exact conversational path to get the NPC to talk to them.

Now, most of this I can work around, right? Just use a good old-fashioned revelation and clue list and you're good!

Well... not really. There's also several places where the adventure contradicts itself:

For example, there are these things called witchbeetle swarms. The Matron (aka Boda) uses them to scry. It's stated several times in the book she hasn't been able to get any into the Underworld, and in fact tries to use the PCs to slip some witchbeetles in:
*scrubbed*

And then when the PCs meet the Matron's agent in the Underworld (Regulus):
*scrubbed*

BAM! Witchbeetles.

I think this suffers from the programmer's mentality of writing a "world-state" into the adventure instead of just letting the DM have the world respond logically to the players. It's a key deficiency of this campaign, and it shows in several places.

So, remember when I said it forced level 8 PCs into a linear plot? Here's the Underworld:
*scrubbed*

Looks good, right? Nice pointcrawl, not a lot of linearity there.

Well, actually...yeah. You see that big golden bridge in area 5? They don't want the PCs to go around it, so the writers did this:
*scrubbed*

Why is there a living adult white dragon on top of a random bridge in the Underworld? Because the writers stopped caring about the world's logic about three chapters ago.

Now, some of you are going to say, "Well, they say that if the PCs win, they can go ahead and let them do stuff out of order! That's good, right?" First off, Dan, get out of my head. Secondly, no, that's bad. There's zero guidance given on how to adjust the narrative, simply a note that the narrative needs to be adjusted! You do not get points back if you say, "We railroaded this, but if the PCs break the tracks, they can go ahead and get off." No. You decided to design the scenario this way, so that's on you, writers. Finally, if anyone's asking what's stopping PCs from swimming, swarms of metallic piranha plus the water does necrotic damage.

Also, note that fighting the dragon doesn't affect the Underworld's state. Some enemies are OK to fight, and some aren't. Boy, it would be nice if we could get a signpost as to which is which!

And that's just one example. If the PCs listen to the dude to talks to them on the bridge, they get sent to the Isle of the Wicked. The Isle of the Wicked, if you didn't guess it, is full of Real Bad Dudes who try to steal the PCs stuff and "punish" them.

If the PCs try to fight the Real Bad Dudes (prisoners), this happens:
*scrubbed*

This is the kind of crap that works in a video game and ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT WORK in a TTRPG. I need to know my choices have realistic weight; if the writers just put in infinite monsters "because plot" the idea that my choices matter falls apart. We're now playing through a novel.

And that comes back to the third point: the Rug Pull.

This is D&D, and more importantly, it's Viking AF D&D. Switching from "Yeah! We're all raiders on the Serpent Sea! Let's go mess people up!" to "If you fight people, you're going to lose" without so much as a signpost is a helluva a whiplash.

Remember how I said the prisoners on the Isle of the Wicked would try to punish the PCs? Here's how that plays out:
*scrubbed*

Apparently, the writers haven't gotten their torture-porn fixation out yet. Imagine RPing that scene, knowing that if the PCs fight, they get to battle infinite bad guys, make the Underworld hostile, and then lose the adventure.

All three of these flaws together make this section damn near unplayable.

A few other points:

Siddhe has a pretty brutal choice to make in the Underworld: take up the mantle of Hel once again, destroying Hollow Hel, and accepting that she'll never be reunited with her lost love. Any time I see the adventure giving an NPC a really hard choice to make, it's a missed opportunity. There should be a PC who gets to make that choice. No bueno.

If you do (somehow) convince Hollow Hel that Regulus is betraying her, she'll fly into a rage and kill him, then turn and fight the party for several rounds. There's no guidance on what her statblock is, so I looked up Hel. She's CR 23. The heroes are level 8. That's...not good?

You're going to have some dead-for-real PCs if you try to run that.

There's a ship made out of toenails and fingernails. This is great.

There are a bunch of wolves and the kids who take care of them. This is Miyazaki by way of Snorri and I love it.

Whatever the PCs do, the Underworld is in one of three states: hostile to the living world (aids the witches at Ragnarok), neutral (stays out of Ragnarok) or allied to the living world (helps the heroes at Ragnarok).

Once done, the PCs go back to Drifthall.

Overall rating for this chapter: 2 / 10. There's some good stuff here, but the problems make it more trouble that it's worth to rework.

[Libertad]

This entire Underworld section makes me sad. The map and the concept sound really cool, but making combat a "default lose" state feels pretty bad, particularly if there's no means of restoring one's grace like with a weregild or something.
*scrubbed*

Lol, this is Dragonlance-tier level of railroading.

[Sparky McDibben]

Lol, this is Dragonlance-tier level of railroading.

Oh, just wait. The next chapter is supposed to kill the PCs.

Chapter 8 is called Return to Drifthall, and it's where the PCs return to Drifthall. Apt.

The two things that happen in this chapter are the election of a new Alljarl and the attack of Boda the Matron. The choices of Alljarl depend on how the PCs have handled clan politics thus far - some clans may have straight up left, and some may loathe the PCs. Regardless, the outcome doesn't depend entirely on the PCs, which I like! There's voting involved, but it seems like the ballots would go on too long, and there are almost certainly outcomes that result in a hung jury.

However, the choice of who gets to be Alljarl has some really interesting consequences (one of the choices will militarize all of society, but that means there's no food available after Ragnarok, leading to massive famine, for example). This is good and smart, and I wish that kind of forethought had gone into what comes next.

After that, all the clans depart. The volv, preparing to journey back to the Well of Wisdom, start prepping their giant fish that pull Drifthall.

And that's when Boda and a giant sea serpent (Ormur) attack.

To be clear, Boda's a CR 24 opponent, and Ormur is CR 25. Here's a picture of the giant sea serpent, for scale:

*scrubbed*

They're joined by three CR 13 corpse swallowers (picture a roc plus a pterodactyl and you've got the general idea).

To be clear, this is rigged against the PCs - the only way out is dying. If the PCs flee, Ormur hunts them down. If they fight, they're almost certain to die. If, by some miracle any PCs survive, one of the seers (with their dying breath) tells the PCs that they have to get to Valhalla, by (you guessed it!) dying valiantly in combat.

Oh, and at the end, the sun and moon are being extinguished. So, bad times all around.

Look, I happen to think that the PCs being railroaded into a combat they cannot win is extremely bad form. I think this could have been avoided with better adventuring and structural design, but that would take us to another patented McDibben ....

First of all, we need to be scattering clues to the witches ultimate scheme well in advance of those schemes coming to fruition. Yes, it's great that the witches subverted the giants, and the Underworld, and were doing weird stuff with the wolves. But ultimately, we need to be doing way more foreshadowing. The PCs need to come across multiple clues to the "killing the sun" scheme, for example, especially in the Ironwood Forest.

Next, we need the volv to put these pieces together, if the PCs don't, realizing that Boda's plan is to destroy Valhalla and stop the honorable dead from fighting at Ragnarok. And finally, we need to give the PCs a choice: You can get to Valhalla by dying in battle (run the Boda/Ormur fight), or have the volv open a gate, sacrificing themselves to buy the heroes time as Boda obliterates the last of the seers. As the PCs enter Valhalla, that's when the sun begins to darken.

Finally, we need consequences for that choice. Maybe if the PCs let the volv sacrifice themselves, it reduces the forces available at Ragnarok, but denies Boda more intel on the PCs. Maybe if they choose to fight Boda, the PCs learn what she can do, but can uncover some key weakness in her strategy or mechanics.

Total score is hard to assign here. For doing what it does, I'd give it a 7 / 10; for rating how it does what it does, I'd give it a 5 / 10. Averaging it out - we'll say about 6 / 10.

Alright, y'all, next up the PCs go to the Halls of the Slain! And here's where the adventure breaks new ground: we've seen railroads before...but how many circular railroads have we seen?

Those of you familiar with the old Norse myths (or Rick Riordan's retellings) will know that in Valhalla, the heroic dead spend all day fighting to the death, only to be resurrected and then spend all night feasting.

Now, that might seem pretty cool to some of you, but to me it's the best possible rendition of Groundhog Day.

*scrubbed*
Now imagine Viking Bill Murray stabbing the absolute *scrubbed* out of that van. FOR GLORY!!!!

But it doesn't make for a very compelling D&D adventure, because it removes all the stakes. So basically, the PCs get stuck in a time loop, trying to break out of it in order to help save Valhalla.

So, couple of things before we get started:


Valhalla's on the moon (also, it's spelled slightly differently in the book, but I'm going to keep calling it Valhalla because that's the name we're all familiar with)
The adventure splits everything into three time states: The Beginning, when Valhalla is just getting started, The Middle, when Valhalla is at its height, and The Now, which is when Valhalla is, well, now.
When the PCs long rest or die, the time state advances, and it's cyclical, so the Now resets to the Beginning.
This whole place is run by Thonir, who is Hel's love, and the only guy to ever beat Boda in a fight.

The PCs have to convince a crusty old rune-smith dwarf to build them a boat, get a map from Thonir, and then wake up a bunch of dragons. The dragons (whom Thonir lulled to sleep), can be used to fight what Boda's doing to the sun, and break her hold on Valhalla, allowing the righteous dead to show up at Ragnarok.

Of course, in so doing, the PCs also take responsibility for the dragons showing up in Grimnir after Ragnarok.

The PCs then sail to another island with the dragons, fight their way through a bunch of really nasty monsters, stop the sun from being consumed, and then get back to Grimnir.

So here's my problems with the adventure:

1) The decision to have time-states means that almost every event or location has three different sub-states for it, often varying wildly in ways that make them more or less interesting (so that the content the PCs need will not be there, depending on the time-state). This is irritating, because the PCs just have to long rest to activate that content (by moving the time state forward).

2) There's a lot of time-sensitive stuff going on here, but at only one point is time actually relevant: whether or not they choose to short rest before they try to stop the sun being eaten. If they do short rest, the sun is like 90% eaten, and Grimnir becomes a frozen hellscape forever more. So there's a lot of just kind of extraneous information here.

Things I like:

1) The bit with the dragons. Having PCs introduce dragons to the world is a great choice and I love it, well done.

Soooo...

Just cut out the time loop. Most of the rest of this is pretty solid. It's a pointcrawl, with clues scattered about. It's effectively done, it's just the writers got too clever by half.

Next, put the PCs on a timer. They can see the sun being eaten, so that tells them how much time they've got left. Strip out everything else - they don't have to build a ship, the dwarf will sail it for them...if they can prove themselves in single combat against him. Just make it so that if anyone dies in Valhalla, they come back to life that night. Thonir will give them the map if they can prove their gumption by making him laugh. He'll also suggest the dragons, and point out where they are.

For this section: 6 / 10. The material is well done, but the effort to hack out all the noise reduces it's utility.

Next time, friendos! Next time the PCs wake the very gods! And oh, there will be DMPCs.

Oh yes, there will be DMPCs.

[Libertad]

Okay, so the party's meant to die at the ends of serpent-kaiju and giant-man.

What happens if instead of fighting, the surviving PCs...run away? :smallamused:

Yeah yeah, I know this isn't as honorable as dying gloriously, but there is a segment of D&D players who love emphasizing the "you don't have to stick around and fight" mantra, and against something like this I can see a gaming group decide discretion is the better part of valor.

Oh wait, hang on a second!

Do Boda or Ormur have ranged attacks, or are they like the Tarrasque?

[Sparky McDibben]

Okay, so the party's meant to die at the ends of serpent-kaiju and giant-man.

What happens if instead of fighting, the surviving PCs...run away? :smallamused:

Yeah yeah, I know this isn't as honorable as dying gloriously, but there is a segment of D&D players who love emphasizing the "you don't have to stick around and fight" mantra, and against something like this I can see a gaming group decide discretion is the better part of valor.

Oh wait, hang on a second!

Do Boda or Ormur have ranged attacks, or are they like the Tarrasque?

There actually aren't any guidelines for what happens if the PCs run away, but we can infer pretty easily. One, Boda is a flying spellcaster, with ranged attacks out the wazoo. Second, they're in the middle of the ocean battling a gigantic sea serpent, so one way or another, they're dead.

Alright, this chapter is called the Stone Court. For those of you who forgot, the Stone Court are the gods of Grimnir, petrified and trapped in stone by Boda's perfidious treachery ages and ages ago...yada, yada, yada.

Boda's been busy while the heroes saved the sun and all - she's using an artifact called the Rainbow Spear to open a gateway to the Lost Lands (the pre-Grimnir fallen civilization) and calling through all manner of allies. These range from CR 4 ironwood witches to CR 18 lava giants called mus. The entire thrust of this chapter is that the PCs have to get to the Stone Court and blow their magic horn again to wake them up.

To get there, they have to go through this delightful little dungeon:
*scrubbed*

Portions of it are blocked off by "impassable" ice until area 13 is cleared and the Frostheart (a magical artifact that's been causing climate change) is destroyed. The rest of it is a nice little dungeoncrawl that (with some better layout, 'crawl procedures, etc) would have been outstanding. As such, it falls a little flat (by which I mean on par with most WotC products).

My three main problems with this chapter are:

The PCs are given a huge army right up front! And then the huge army gets bogged down battlng an equally huge army of Boda's minions! So, we give the PCs a huge army to recognize their achievements, and then immediately take them away so we can still have a dungeoncrawl.

Second, we're doing a dungeoncrawl at level 13. This is usually the part where 5E heroes have fully outgrown the dungeon, and this dungeon layout doesn't really account for the abilities of the PCs. One well-placed passwall or dimension door or hell, even a shatter spell will turn that impassable ice into a fun romp for the PCs. While it does leverage environmental effects well, it very much feels like the design is informed by someone who's never had to deal with a very outside-the-box player before.

Finally, the railroading. After the PCs make it to the Stone Court at the end of the chapter, it triggers a huge fight with Boda. Once the PCs blow the horn once, she'll shift the Rainbow Spear and try to throw the PCs into the Lost Lands. The book tells the DM explicitly that the horn, the PCs ship (the ship they got from the dwarf in Valhalla functions much like a folding boat), and all the PCs (regardless of their choices) have to get thrown through the portal.

*scrubbed*, just bad form all around. No bueno.

That dungeon is a solid 7 / 10, but you lose points for railroading: 5 / 10.

And now...the heroes have to go to the Lost Lands ('cuz railroad) and try to stop the bad guys from drawing their reinforcements. But that'll be next time!

[Libertad]

Love the artwork of the map, but the grid feels kind of...odd? Like instead of a top-down view it's a side-view, which isn't so good. Unless the smaller individual room sections have top-down versions.

[animorte]

it very much feels like the design is informed by someone who's never had to deal with a very outside-the-box player before.
This looks like a good summary for the entire ordeal. Perhaps if they have a disclaimer at the beginning somewhere in preparation for the railroading:


All aboard! Raiders of the Serpent Sea, preparing departure!

Just make sure you throw in the conductor for periodic ticket punching so they don't forget they don't have any really choices.

I commonly get caught up in your story-telling and I'll think, "That's a pretty good idea. They did nicely here." Oh wait, that's another patented McDibben "How I Would Do It".

[Sparky McDibben]

Hey y'all,

I'm sorry I haven't updated this thread in a bit. I spent all last week in New Jersey on business, and I didn't have my laptop. I'll get started posting more regular updates this week, and we'll get to the end soon, I promise.

Thanks to Libertad and animorte for keeping this thread alive!!

[Libertad]

Hey y'all,

I'm sorry I haven't updated this thread in a bit. I spent all last week in New Jersey on business, and I didn't have my laptop. I'll get started posting more regular updates this week, and we'll get to the end soon, I promise.

Thanks to Libertad and animorte for keeping this thread alive!!

I figured that real life priorities had taken over; there's no shame in that, and I know that these review threads can take a lot out of someone.

Once you get back into the swing of things, I'll be looking forward to the next update!

[Sparky McDibben]

This looks like a good summary for the entire ordeal. Perhaps if they have a disclaimer at the beginning somewhere in preparation for the railroading:


All aboard! Raiders of the Serpent Sea, preparing departure!

Just make sure you throw in the conductor for periodic ticket punching so they don't forget they don't have any really choices.

From your lips to God's ear, my friend.


I commonly get caught up in your story-telling and I'll think, "That's a pretty good idea. They did nicely here." Oh wait, that's another patented McDibben "How I Would Do It".


I figured that real life priorities had taken over; there's no shame in that, and I know that these review threads can take a lot out of someone.

Once you get back into the swing of things, I'll be looking forward to the next update!

Aw, thanks y'all!!

Alright, now on to Chapter 11: The Lost Lands. This is, at its core, a pointcrawl that educates the PCs on the stakes of resisting the Yoten invasion. See, Boda isn't killing off worlds because she's a fan. No, she's killing off worlds to feed Muspell, a plane-devouring entity. It's destroyed the Lost Lands, filling the seas with lava and killing off almost everyone except a hardcore band of resistance fighters.

https://y.yarn.co/2fcdff5a-3fba-4ac8-b310-28b3412a02df_text.gif
Nope, not that Resistance.

https://media.tenor.com/E-976rGqaRwAAAAM/terminator-resistance.gif
Still wrong.

https://media.tenor.com/vO8zq_233L4AAAAM/well-stand-with-you-fight.gif
Yeah, that's about right.

These guys are basically useless unless you're looking for backup characters or have a desire to play an edgelord. From there, the PCs sail the lava seas on their magical ship, exploring their progenitor's homeland. They discover the home of the Stone Court (and Thonir), a destroyed magical academy, and a wrecked magical city.

So, the point the authors are building up is that, "Unless you stop Boda, this is what is in store for Grimnir." It's effectively done, and well-executed, and also communicates that there is nowhere else to go. Unless Muspell is destroyed, the PCs (and the whole world of Grimnir) are boned. Finally, it also sets up (if the PCs go to the right place) the personalities and deeds of the Stone Court and why they are a Big Deal. This has been happening at various points throughout the campaign, but it's usually optional or easily missed, and I've kind of glossed over them. Here, though, it's practically mandatory.

Moreover, the PCs can see that there are armies of lava giants entering Grimnir through three maws. These maws conveniently lead back to Grimnir, which is handy because apparently Muspell shuts down all forms of interplanar travel. The number of the maws the PCs can close (either by talking or fighting) reduces the number of giants the PCs have to face at Ragnarok. Unfortunately, at least one has to stay open or the PCs can't get back home.

There are still some instances of railroading (the evil lava giant queen Glaur "always escapes," etc.) so they still lose points for that.

Otherwise, this section does its job nicely. 6 / 10.

Next time, friends, we will close out the final chapter: Ragnarok!

[Libertad]

The spark returns!

In your next post covering the finale, will that part be the final post for this review, or is there post-adventure material?

[animorte]

a hardcore band of resistance fighters...

These guys are basically useless
Ah, you had me in the first half. :smalltongue:


Next time, friends, we will close out the final chapter: Ragnarok!
Train finally pulling into the station?

[JackPhoenix]

Moreover, the PCs can see that there are armies of lava giants entering Grimnir through three maws. These maws conveniently lead back to Grimnir, which is handy because apparently Muspell shuts down all forms of interplanar travel. The number of the maws the PCs can close (either by talking or fighting) reduces the number of giants the PCs have to face at Ragnarok. Unfortunately, at least one has to stay open or the PCs can't get back home.

There are still some instances of railroading (the evil lava giant queen Glaur "always escapes," etc.) so they still lose points for that.

No accounting for a single PC commiting heroic sacrifice to close the maws after the rest of the PCs escape, I assume?

[Sparky McDibben]

The spark returns!

In your next post covering the finale, will that part be the final post for this review, or is there post-adventure material?

There's like 150 pages of post-adventure appendices. Let me know if you'd like me to break those down, too!


Ah, you had me in the first half. :smalltongue:

LOL!


No accounting for a single PC commiting heroic sacrifice to close the maws after the rest of the PCs escape, I assume?

No, actually, but that's not that odd. One of the things this adventure does is give PCs custom backgrounds that come with specific destinies. So one of the PCs is foretold to only fall in battle against Fenris. So, you see, the PCs can't make a heroic sacrifice here! They have to choose to make their heroic sacrifice later.

I have not the words to convey how many *scrubbed* I cannot give for that concept.

Alright, y'all, here's where the chickens come home to roost! It's the Big Show, the Grand Finale, the Showdown to Throwdown!

This chapter is basically a series of engagements the PCs can pick and choose. There's a lot of contingent weirdness that goes on, and the word "if" comes up so much:

"If the PCs convinced the frost giants to remain neutral..."

"If the PCs rescued Luta from Valhalla..."

https://y.yarn.co/64eeada0-f2eb-4649-82e0-83851b885b0b_text.gif

Hope you took good notes, hoss. Though on that note, the text does provide various trackers and other play aids to make keeping track of this information easier. So props to them on that.

Look, obviously I prefer a more organic approach, but for DMs who aren't comfortable with that, this works. It's a stylistic difference, with minimal railroading of the PCs. There are a lot of consequences that show up, which I applaud the devs for. Most importantly of all, it lays out what happens if the PCs fail!

That's important, considering the final boss has half a page of legendary actions.

Basically, Grimnir winds up very similar to the Lost Lands, with lava seas and *scrubbed*. But now the PCs are the next generation, determined to finish what the last bunch started.

But hey, if they win, the PCs get to become basically gods, presumably with a doormat that says, "Roll for Initiative" and matching T-shirts that say, "We Run This *scrubbed* Now."

(I'm being literal about the gods bit, though - you can be gifted one of four "divine sparks" - which begs the question: What happens if you have more than 4 PCs?)

There are a few things I don't like - Boda at the end has a Crystal Shell around her that gives her 1,000 (yes, you read that right) additional hp, and makes her "immune to bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing damage from non-magical weapons." She also has "resistance to all damage, except lightning. While in the shell Boða is immune to all conditions that would prevent her from taking actions. Even if the shell is destroyed, Boða will continue to perform the ritual until her Point of No Return saga action is triggered."

That...just seems dickish? Like, damn, devs, let the PCs try something crazy. Not everything needs to be resolved like a JRPG boss. On the other hand, it's not actively railroading the PCs. So I'm not docking them points on this.

*scrubbed*
Libertad really shouldn't have shown me how to post pics on this site.

So, yeah, not a bad ending. Not great, mind you, but not bad. 7 / 10.

Overall grade: 5 / 10

Who should buy it: Anyone who has a deep love of Norse-themed action/adventure stories (not the actual myths), or people who love them some BioWare-style design.

Who should wait for the price to come down: Not very many people.

Who shouldn't buy it: Anyone not interested in running this very specific iteration of a Norse-themed world. This adventure is deeply idiosyncratic, so if you're expecting it to be "historically grounded" please think again.

Alright, y'all, let me know if you want me to keep going with the appendices - some of them are quite long (the monster section weighs in at 76 pages) and I didn't want to waste y'all's time. Also let me know if you'd be interested in a review of the Player's Guide, too.

[Libertad]

There's like 150 pages of post-adventure appendices. Let me know if you'd like me to break those down, too!


That's important, considering the final boss has half a page of legendary actions.

Thankfully such things aren't common in 5th Edition, but bloated stat blocks were a nightmare to navigate back in 3rd Edition. It may be tempting to give creatures a lot of potential options, but unlike PCs with losts of spells it ends up weighing things down for the DM for a monster or enemy that by all accounts may only appear once in an adventure.


Basically, Grimnir winds up very similar to the Lost Lands, with lava seas and *scrub the post, scrub the quote*. But now the PCs are the next generation, determined to finish what the last bunch started.

But hey, if they win, the PCs get to become basically gods, presumably with a doormat that says, "Roll for Initiative" and matching T-shirts that say, "We Run This *scrub the post, scrub the quote* Now."

(I'm being literal about the gods bit, though - you can be gifted one of four "divine sparks" - which begs the question: What happens if you have more than 4 PCs?)

The Odyssey of the Dragonlords had a similar ending, too.


Libertad really shouldn't have shown me how to post pics on this site.

*scrubbed*

Studies have shown that people are likelier to read something with images, even if the images have nothing to do with the text at hand.


So, yeah, not a bad ending. Not great, mind you, but not bad. 7 / 10.

Overall grade: 5 / 10

Who should buy it: Anyone who has a deep love of Norse-themed action/adventure stories (not the actual myths), or people who love them some BioWare-style design.

Who should wait for the price to come down: Not very many people.

Who shouldn't buy it: Anyone not interested in running this very specific iteration of a Norse-themed world. This adventure is deeply idiosyncratic, so if you're expecting it to be "historically grounded" please think again.

Alright, y'all, let me know if you want me to keep going with the appendices - some of them are quite long (the monster section weighs in at 76 pages) and I didn't want to waste y'all's time. Also let me know if you'd be interested in a review of the Player's Guide, too.

Thank you very much for this review! Kind of a shame to hear that Raiders had so many flaws in spite of its epic premise. I'm hoping that this isn't a recurring element with Modiphius' Bioware alumni adventures. Odyssey had some problems too, but IMO the worst was near the end rather than being spread evenly throughout, which is what Raiders sounds like.

As to whether you want to review the appendices and/or Player's Guide...personally speaking it's up to you and what you'd get out of it, but since you're asking for reader input I'd have to ask how much neat stuff is buried in there outside of the rather middling adventure. Like if there's a cool subclass in the vein of a Battlemaster or Echo Knight it'd be fun to hear how the book handles it. Or cool magic items and monsters to transplant to other adventures.

[flat_footed]

The Fullmetal Mod: Closed for review.

[flat_footed]

The Fullmetal Mod: Thread reopened.

[Phhase]

:smallconfused: Well, that was odd.

Pity the adventure has so many pitfalls. The art is nice. The more I read, the more I find myself thinking "Surely creating a halfway decent module can't be that hard." A high water mark of hubris naturally but...

[JackPhoenix]

No, actually, but that's not that odd. One of the things this adventure does is give PCs custom backgrounds that come with specific destinies. So one of the PCs is foretold to only fall in battle against Fenris. So, you see, the PCs can't make a heroic sacrifice here! They have to choose to make their heroic sacrifice later.

That sounds like hilariously bad idea. How does it account for a random enemy mook getting a lucky crit and killing the destined PC? And if that's accounted for, how does it deal with the player being extremely reckless with their character knowing they can't die?

[animorte]

This chapter is basically a series of engagements the PCs can pick and choose. There's a lot of contingent weirdness that goes on, and the word "if" comes up so much:
Woah, you mean to tell me there are choices?

Look, obviously I prefer a more organic approach, but for DMs who aren't comfortable with that, this works. It's a stylistic difference, with minimal railroading of the PCs. There are a lot of consequences that show up, which I applaud the devs for. Most importantly of all, it lays out what happens if the PCs fail!
I like when different options are available, not only as a player, but as a DM.

For the record, whatever you're interested in clearly shines through in your attitude. Don't do something you're not enjoying, if you can help. That doesn't necessarily mean we don't learn from the bad moments. I know it's granted me another perspective.

[Nickypoo]

There's like 150 pages of post-adventure appendices. Let me know if you'd like me to break those down, too!



LOL!



No, actually, but that's not that odd. One of the things this adventure does is give PCs custom backgrounds that come with specific destinies. So one of the PCs is foretold to only fall in battle against Fenris. So, you see, the PCs can't make a heroic sacrifice here! They have to choose to make their heroic sacrifice later.



Thank you Sparky for the detailed review! I'm getting back into DMing for the first real time in about 15 years. I'm midway thru Ch2, have read up to Ch7 and wanted to share my take on the campaign setting.

The good: I agree the artwork is beautiful. Yes it is verbose but I've really enjoyed the lore building into the campaign. I figure it's faerun where everyone sorta knows what's going on already so they're entitled to an extended exposition.

Epic backgrounds are in my opinion one of the cooler things about the campaign, gives the players individual goals and a stake in the world.

The bad: Yes it's railroady but none of my players take the game that seriously, we know it's not Shakespeare so plotholes are fine. Here's the little things that get to me.

1) wolves are supposed to be exotic extraterrestrial creatures that no one has heard of...in a world of half-giants, witches, and sea monsters

2) in Ch2, there's no motivation to check out Rockpike unless someone is the royal heir or if they want to rescue Skuld. But no one has a reason to care who Skuld is, and she doesn't serve much purpose after you rescue her!

3) speaking of Skuld, there are too many DMPCs as Sparky noted already.

4) how do they find Drifthall? How does anyone find Drifthall? I'm going to have some white ravens swoop in to point the way but how else does anyone know where to sail?

5) as Sparky noted, the layout is atrocious. To resolve the cursed raider's plot, you get the mission from the volv in ch3 to go to the underworld in ch7 where you discover to visit a tomb in ch4 and the sail back to the volv in ch 3. Mark your progress in the plot tracker in Appendix B.

6) thanks to Sparky for giving examples of how to resolve ch6 quest, my players will just try to slaughter all the frost giants (good luck)

7) ch7 really jumps the shark for me. How are the players supposed to deduce Hel's secret? How are they supposed to go 10 rounds against a god with 4 attacks at +15 with 23 avg damage a whack? Plus lair actions!!!

8) this may be a reflection of my age but I want to comment on one thing that is really distracting: the political correctness with gender representation. I understand it would look bad if the only female npcs were Hel and the ironwood witches. But this campaign goes out of its way to put women in leadership roles. Aldynn is a gender swapped Odin. The clan jarls are mostly female, while one of the male jarls turns out to be an antagonist. The wisest volv is female, so is her seergaurd Fyrkat. Medrash the leader of the Lutan raiding party in Fallegur is female. Other than Hrolf (who becomes obsolete) the prominent male npcs (Cenric, Regulus, and Kare Bernaskr) are mostly bad guys. Why bother casting detect evil?

9) monsters in appendices not in alphabetical order, consult gm reference for the index

Bottom line, I'm enjoying this campaign, but it's really quirky