Foundry Ovens of the Bitter Paramore (Nick Alexander)
AD&D for PCs of 5th-7th level
This one is gross. But whatever.
For my review criteria, you may check out this post. All reviews will (probably) contain *SPOILERS*; you have been warned! Because these are short (three page) adventures, it is my intention to keep the reviews short.
Some people dig horror and stuff that pushes (or crosses) the boundaries of "good taste." House of 1,000 Corpses. The Human Centipede. Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Whatever. That's not my bag, and I don't have to watch it, listen to it, play it. But today I'm reviewing it. It's not the most egregious adventure I've read, but it's not pleasant. So we'll see how much my bias colors my review.
The "Bitter Paramore" [sic] of the title (note to the author: "Paramour" is not spelled like that, unless you mean the emo band) is a fire giant (or is he?) that runs a hellish factory of smoke and fire, kidnapping women from around the territory in order to exercise his depredations before burning them alive and stuffing them in metal statues. That's the "PG" summary. Everyone in the "Foundry" (a five-story dungeon site of some 19-20 encounters) is despicable, insane, or both and well-worth putting to the sword. If killing shit without moral quandary is your thing, feel free to go hog wild in this place.
Skipping past the lovingly described scenes of torture and mayhem, let's look at the "dungeon-y stuff" in this hellscape: denizens of the Foundry include a fire giant, a deranged leprechaun, an imprisoned efreeti, a bitter ghost, some 15 verbeeg (half-giants) and their leader, 50 hobgoblins, a flesh golem, and a doppleganger. However, the majority of these (including the main antagonist) have no set locations but instead only appear on a 2-in-6 chance here, or a 1-in-6 chance there. It is possible that PCs will wander around encountering great batches of nothing (or very small encounters), given the random rolling. An actual timeline (as is done with the 1st floor sentries) would have been more advisable.
We also have additional random encounters that include firebats, hargrin, magmen, and para-elementals of magma (although no hit dice are given for those last ones...a bit of an oversight). No order of battle given or discussion of what happens if an alarm is raised and how the scores of guardsmen, etc. react when the PCs begin butchering people. This would have been good information to include.
Challenge level for monsters is thus 'all over the place.' Will a fight with a 16 HD elemental attract attention? How fast do verbeeg patrols react to sounds of mayhem? Will the hobgoblins shrug and look away or will the "paramore" whip them into a fighting frenzy? It's all DM discretion whether various groups are apathetic or whether they swarm PCs en masse. It is even possible to "blow the tank" of the foundry, filling the place with the equivalent of an incendiary cloud, releasing 2d6 magma elementals (again: no hit dice given), and having a 25% chance of collapsing the whole structure, killing everyone inside...including the PCs. Ouch!
Expected treasure take for an adventure this size should be around the 160K-170K mark. Total monetary treasure barely clears 43K. If you sell every magic item found (don't drink those potions!) you can push that up to 130K. Eh...a little short, but close.
The new spell, Stir Bride of Chlimbia, is too powerful for a 7th level spell. Fortunately, using it in this adventure is likely to kill all the PCs. Probably should make it 9th level and/or place a limit on just how many 12 HD golems (3-30 damage, +2 weapons o hit, and breath weapon equal to current HPs!) the caster can animate with the spell. Used on the rooftop, it'll give you a dozen of these destroyers; again, ouch.
This is (probably) an exceptionally dangerous dungeon with fairly low reward, and a new spell that can have hugely bad ramifications in a campaign. I also find much of it to be excessively distasteful. Taste, however, doesn't factor into my rating, and it's still rather playable. Three stars (out of five) with a "-" for the problems mentioned. It should probably kill a lot of PCs.
***-
Haha, seems somebody trolled the contest.
ReplyDeleteI recently trolled another OSR adventure contest. However, the organiser seems to be under shock, no result or feedback has been published so far.
Nope, not trolling. In the discord channel I frequent, he explained (rather apologetically) that this turned out a lot nastier than he intended...although he really wanted the main Bad Guy to be despicable enough the PCs would endeavor to slay him without mercy.
DeleteCurrently, he's polishing it up, toning down a few things and adjusting some of the mechanical bits I criticized.
Part of me would love to say that I'd trolled the affair; that would have been some kind of artistic win if not a total dick move. However, perhaps more unnervingly, it came out like this with zero intent to shock.
ReplyDeleteI followed my instincts regarding the kind of evil on display in the scenario; there's nothing in there that doesn't make sense to me. It all arose fairly naturally. When it came to looking at the thing again (following this review) it struck me that truly evil antagonists, perhaps make for less fun at the table. (Some tables, most tables, I don't know)
Thinking on this thing kept me up last night... I didn't get much sleep.
Ultimately, I do think that art is the place where evil can and ought to live. But maybe not in games. Again, I don't know. I came up with this character and his story, and then went about drafting an open ended situation around/about him. I'm keen on 'show, don't tell'.
This was the result. I can offer little more on the thing. I own it. I made it. There is evil in it.
The misspelling of Paramore was a terrible joke. I hate the emo lover that makes the Foundry his home. It seemed to render him more foolish and absurd in my eyes.
It remains my hope that somebody will give him his just desserts.
I'd like to read your module one day. Your original spicy version.
DeleteI've seen worse jokes in modules.
DeleteDon't lose sleep over it, Nick. You made a gruesome antagonist in a hellish dungeon...perfect for a group of paladins and LG-types to go all righteous crusader. D&D doesn't have to be "nuanced."
I think you're being harder on yourself than you need to be. "Evil" and "cruelty" already exist in the game...perhaps not explicitly or graphically detailed, but those of us with imagination (and an understanding of the terrible acts humans have done to each other over the century) have no trouble inserting horror and grotesquerie into the veiled writing that makes up most adventure modules. We can visualize it, even if it remains unspoken and unwritten. Heck, most of the time we don't even think about it...just as we don't stop to think of the bloody piles of corpses and entrails that gore-soaked adventurers leave in their wake as they maraud through the average dungeon.
Describing depredation is simply putting words to what has always lurked around the corner...it has NOT suddenly corrupted our fun-loving fantasy game.
So don't waste (much) worry on it. For one thing, you put a distinctive 'stamp' on the thing: no one reading this will come away with an idea that these villains are simply "misunderstood;" that's a WIN for communicating your vision as a designer. Most DMs reading this will (probably) run an adventure like this through their own filter for the players at their table...I know I would. And yet, the adventure would still be PLAYABLE even with the language dialed down to 'euphemisms;' that's another win.
If it really bothers you, you could always throw a warning label on the front. Other companies (Palladium, White Wolf) have been doing hat for decades.
@Willi I'll send it to you when the competition is done.
Delete@JB Thank you. I don't mean to come over so terribly fragile. I was pretty confident in my being able to recognise the flaws in the module...so you could call the taste aspect of it a Black Swan event. I *could* have predicted it, but I didn't.
Yes, some warning would have been a worthwhile move. Honestly, I thought I was writing a pulp!
I remain extremely grateful for this review. Time has only reinforced this.
Oh, good. And, for the record, you didn't come off as 'fragile,' only torn/anguished...which is something most (all?) authors go through with varying degrees of frequency.
Delete; )