The Silver Summoning

Ok, I just read it all!

I had already went to my shop to pick this up before I read your review bramadan or maybe I would not have got it!....and what a mistake that would have been. I liked Nemorens Vault which is why I looked for it and it expands on that setting in a big way and gives an area map to the Westwood region.

I did not find the ho-humness you found to it, I think it has an epic feel to it -though is is always up to the DM to make that happen! Like there first adventure, it was really logical and the stuff made sense. What I thought was neat was the tons of history they add to everything so that it feels more real - and the encounter with the druid looks like it will be a major role playing encounter if your players like that -the zone of truth makes total sense.

Can't beat those color counters - miniatures are alot more.

Mind you I also picked up Witchfire Trilogy and that one is amazing so please get that one too -I will try to post a review when I am through reading it!

PS. I like this reviews board now that I have posted several reviews -thanks EN guys!
 

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bramadan

First Post
I have read this adventure immedaitely after "The Longest Night" and it felt like traveling about 15 years back in time. Whereas the " Longest Night" feels like a whif of fresh air in fantasy gaming with its incredible interior art, engaging setting, (fairly) non linear plot and interesting NPCs (see my review of this adventure) "The Silver Summoning" is more like something taken out of the discount bin storing early eighties dungeon crawls.
Now, dungeon crawls can be fun and early eighties were a good period in gaming but for someone who had read and played a great deal of this sort of adventures this module is predictable and unnecessary. It brings nothing that has not been seen before and does not even excell in execution of this rehashed material in a way of, for example, "Crucible of Freya" or "NeMoren's Vault".
Adventure consists of a chase (which may or may not invlove combat) and a dungeon crawl trough (ho-hum) a dwarven mine. As such it is servicable but realy nothing more than that.
Fact that the object of a quest is something called "Tund Dust" and that powerfull good guy who "hires" PC's is Cuchulain, oh pardon, Cuhulain the Druid shows that authors were uninspired at best. Initail appearance of the said druid ("...He seems old but strong with wathered face..." is another example of abuse of the clishes of the genre.
The fact that he (secretly) casts a zone of truth before approaching a band of total strangers (just so he can later patronizingly correct PC's when they try to lie) makes the whole encounter a tad more juvenile and his adress to the PCs (again, chance strangers met on the road) is risking becoming a parody: "I am Cuhulain, guardian of The Path...".
All in all substandard but servicable adventure buy it if you ahve excess money.
 

Tuerny

First Post
First appeared on www.AtFantasy.com

The Silver Summoning, by Jason Kempton, is the second in Fiery Dragon Production's line of d20 modules. Written for a group of four characters of fifth to seventh level, it is set in a generic kingdom known as the Kingdom of Kalendia, a generic kingdom that also served as the setting for Nemoren's Vault. Unlike the previous modules, The Silver Summoning draws a great deal from the setting presented, and will require a bit more adaptation to work with an existing campaign.

Plot Outline
Thousands of years ago, during an epic war between the Atlantean Sorcerers and the Enbarrian Psions, the Atlantean Sorcerers attempted to forge six powerful, enchanted swords, known as the Runeblades, to ensure victory. The forging of the last one proved to be disastrous for the Atlanteans, destroying their great magical forges and their homeland itself. The ashes of these forges, which spread to various places around the continent, became known as the Tund Dust. Few know of its power or its special properties. One of those who know about it is Gurza, a powerful necromancer and alchemist, who has sought it for the last thirty years. She wishes to use it to summon the demon Kraal and bind as her lover.

One of Gurza's servants is Tonagma, a beautiful and deadly sorceress, who may have a way to gain what her mistress desires. Using the knowledge of Kogga, a member of the Aggerring Dwarves, she has discovered that a batch of it can be found in the halls of the ancient Smargaholt. She also gained from him one of the three Talismans of Opening needed to gain access to the dust. In order to increase her chances of acquiring of the Dust she has asked her human lover, Koli, to gather her an army. He has made a pact with the local orc tribe, the Himark, to assault Smargaholt, providing sufficient distraction for Tonagma to infiltrate the fortress and seize the Dust. In order for the Himrik to do this, Koli must prevent the marriage of a human hero and an elven noble. A horde of orcs attacking would do very little to disrupt the alliance that threatens to emerge from this, and would in fact speed it up. Enter the PCs.

The PCs have been invited to the wedding of Celentina, an elven noble, and Paros, a human noble, that promises to strengthen ties between the human and elven nations. The PCs are given time to explore the festival that is heralding the upcoming wedding, and can learn much of what is going on in and around the settlement as well as the potential this match has. Unfortunately, Koli wants to stop that from happening. As the ceremony proceeds two black arrows strike the betrothed, affecting them with a poison that will slowly electrocute them. The local priestess and healer recognizes the poison as a rare one whose only cure is either in the hands of the assassin who just struck them down or the dwarves of Smaragholt to the north. Both the mayor and the priestess encourage the PCs to pursue the assassin.

The next portion of the adventure involves this chase, as the PCs pursue Koli across the countryside, through an abandoned gnomish mine, and finally to the Thorp of Ely, where he meets up with a contingent of orcs. Regardless of whether they defeat Koli over the course of the chase or he succeeds at escaping, they encounter Cuhulain, a powerful member of The Path, a mysterious group dedicated to maintaining nature's balance. He demands to know what is going on and, after discovering it and drawing upon his own knowledge, insists that the PCs go and warn the dwarven king of impending treachery. He says he will deal with finding the antidote for the poison that effects the couple, and has access to it in a secret fortress of the Path that only he may enter. He gives the PCs the option of two alternative paths that they might follow while seeking to gain entry to the fortress as well as a talisman to show to the dwarves to prove their sincerity. Each of these paths is equally dangerous and contains creatures warped by the effects of the Tund Dust.

Upon the PC's arrival at Smargholt, the dwarven stronghold is on the verge of falling after a sneak attack led by Tonagma crippled the interior defenders. Many dwarves are seeking to abandon the fortress while others continue to guard vital vantage points. The PCs are left to explore the place, looking for the king and attempting to stop Tonagma. The fortress itself is filled with a smattering of orcish raiders, dwarven guards, and battles between them. During the exploration the PCs encounter King Garr and his two generals, locked in a pitched battle with a collection of orcs, mercury golems, and an ogre. Assuming the PCs save them, the dwarves tell them that the talisman they have is one of the Talismans of Opening, and request that the PCs stop Tonagma and find the Tun Dust, hiding it away where noone will ever be able to find it. Eventually the PCs should encounter her, exploring the lower level, and face her in a pitched battle, and concluding the adventure.

If the PCs prove successful than they return to find the married couple injured but unpoisoned. They must also find out what to do with the Tun Dust, though Cuhulain offers to dispose of it for them, and deal with the revenge of Gurza and her minions. If they fail then Tonagma recovers the Dust and gives it to her mistress, precipitating the summoning of a terrible demon that unleashes its powers onto the world.

Presentation
The Silver Summoning, a standard laminated, stapled, booklet, is forty-four pages long. The inside covers have a set of tables representing challenge ratings on the front cover and a random encounter table on the back cover. The margins are blank and a half inch wide.

The cover illustration, by Todd Secord, depicts a variety of scenes, including the dwarven fortress of Smaragholt, the sorceress Tonagma, Koli, and an unidentified individual. The interior art largely displays illustrations of probable events covered in the text.

The maps are functional but informative, including a grid and scale where necessary, and major furniture and physical features.

Several additional features are included in the module, including a blank, square grid for miniatures combat, color, photocopyable handouts, a sheet of color, cardboard counters, the simple pursuit system tracking grid, and color maps of the town of Hollobrae and the West Wood Barony.

Overview
The Silver Summoning is divided into an Introduction, an Adventure Background & Synopsis, five chapters detailing the adventure itself, and four Appendixes.

The Introduction discusses the premise behind the module and how to use the extras included in the module. The Adventure Background & Synopsis explains everything that led up to the current state of affairs (summarized above) and a summary of the PCs tasks in the adventure. The adventure chapters are divided into Hollobrae, the Pursuit of Koli, the Mining Thorp of Ely, Cuhulain, Atalel's Wood, the Yellow Canyon, and Smaragholt. The Appendixes detail monster descriptions, featured characters, new items, and the OGL/d20 license.

Analysis
The Silver Summoning is a much more ambitious and fast-paced adventure than its predecessor, relying much more on events and particular, active characters rather than a particular static locations. It succeeds very well in providing an interesting plot but suffers from a few questionable decisions. First off, it never explains how Koli is able to get off the two arrows that strike the betrothed couple before anyone is able to react. He lacks rapid shot or any other sort of enhancement to his rate of fire. Secondly, the intervention of Cuhulain is also a rather forceful way to force the PCs to pursue the second half of the adventure. While it is a direct and easy way to do so, some PCs may resent the way it is done. Finally, it is unknown why King Garr would send the PCs with the two Talismans of Opening right into the hands of Tonagma. If he really wanted to insure this did not happen he would insist the PCs give him theirs and go far, far away.

In addition it appears that the module suffers in the form of Challenge Ratings. Many were assigned incorrectly, most notably the classed characters, who each had a CR one lower than their actual level.

Beyond these points, the Silver Summoning works well as an adventure. The Simple Chase rules add much to the adventure and provide a system that is easily useable beyond the constraints of the module. The plot itself is many-layered and unpredictable, with a plethora of opportunities for potential expansion after its conclusion. The Tund Dust itself can serve as the basis of an entire campaign, as the PCs seek out new sources of it and attempt to eliminate them before their corruption spreads.

Conclusion
The Silver Summoning is a very different adventure from NeMoren's Vault. Relying on the motivations of multiple conflicting NPCs and multiple layers of plot-hooks, but retains much of the quality that Nemoren's Vault had, despite suffering from some minor plots holes. Its additional material, in the form of counters and handouts, adds greatly to the value of the module, and easily makes up for the flaws it does have, making it definitely worth its $9.95 cover price.
 

Psion

Adventurer
(Review originally appeared on RPGnet. Some changes have been made from the original version).

The Silver Summoning

The Silver Summoning is the second offering by Fiery Dragon Productions, one of many D20 vendors leaping at the opportunity to publish and sell material aimed at the hobby's most popular game system. Fiery Dragon's first adventure for the D20 system was NeMoren's Vault. The two adventures use the same general setting, but they are not direct sequels. The Silver Summoning is designed for a party of characters level 5-7.

A First Look

The Silver Summoning is a soft-cover, staple-bound book with a blue cover. The front cover depicts a collage of characters and locations from the adventure, most prominently a dark haired woman. The cover art is color, but appears to be done is colored pencil. While not wholly unattractive, the art does appear less than professional in quality. While this sort of art could become a stylistic trademark for the company. However, as this is only their second product, that remains to be seen.

The adventure is 44 pages long, plus it includes a pullout section of cardboard counters. The product does make use of the front and back covers, for the challenge rating table and encounter tables respectively.

The interior is mostly black-and-white, except for the counter sheet and player handouts. The same artist who did the cover does the interior art. The "sketchy look" doesn't look as out of place in the black and white interior art as it does on the cover. It has a feel not unlike that of the classic Flying Buffalo Citybook series, if you are familiar with that.

The interior space is well used, with narrow margins (hint: I am not a fan of the "John Wick school of padding" ) and readable but compact font. The appendix, however, uses a font that is perhaps smaller than optimal. Flourishes are used at the top and bottom of the pages, but likewise aren't overly large.

The cartography is excellent. The maps are simple, straightforward, and have a clear key. The only fault I would assign the cartography is a little labeling. They refer to a "player's map" in the book but nothing is labeled the players map.

Overall, the production quality is fairly high but the simplistic art may throw you. The adventure is priced at $9.95 US.

A Peek Inside

(Warning -- this section of the review contains spoilers. Read at your own risk.)

There is a lot of background to the adventure; it appears to have a "home setting" the same as NeMoren's vault. A lot of the names of characters and places have a strong Celtic feel (e.g., "Hollobrae", "Cuhulain." ) The setting assumptions are strong but not overwhelming. For example, it assumes that that there are orcs, dwarves, humans and elves all in the local region. Not an impossible find in one's local campaign, but it could be in a well fleshed-out campaign. The adventure revolves around the existence of a material called Tund Dust, which was the direct result of an ancient cataclysm of an Atlantis-like empire (actually, they call it Atlantis.)

Fortunately, as I read on I learned that the dependence on these details was not as strong as it initially seemed. If I didn't have an equivalent historical empire of magic in my game I could explain the Tund Dust in other ways; the Tund Dust is a source of magical power that has some unfortunate chaotic side effects, not unlike the warp stone of the Old World setting of Warhammer or similar contrivances. However, the author probably should have indicated that this was the case and provided alternatives. A DM with little time on their hands to learn the details and modify the module could have some problems integrating this adventure into an ongoing campaign.

The adventure itself is mildly event based, with some events linking together a number of site-based scenarios. Through their supposed notoriety, the adventurers earn invitations to a local wedding of some political importance. The bride and groom fall victim to an assassination attempt involving a rare poison. They are asked to retrieve a sample of the plant the poison is derived from in order to make an antidote and save the couple. Two possibilities are mentioned for how this herb can be retrieved: by pursuing the assassin or by going to meet the dwarves to the north who are known to have it.

The party is asked to pursue the assassin, and it is presumed that is what they do. On the surface, that is a safe assumption, but the possibility exists that the party could lose track of the assassin and opt for "plan B". The adventure does not directly address what to do in that case, but the DM might assume that on the way to the dwarven stronghold the party runs into the druid Cuhulain who is fairly pivotal to the last part of the adventure. The problem is similar if the adventurers catch the assassin too early (see below.)

The pursuit scenario includes a useful element that DMs should be able to use in the future: a quick but well developed system for negotiating wilderness pursuits based on the elements of the D20 system. The system is like a miniature rules add-on that describes how to determine whether pursuer or prey has the advantage based on mounts and character skills. The only problem I have with this otherwise neat and useful little system is that bluff is used to throw off trackers. I see bluff as more of an interpersonal skill and at best it should provide a synergy bonus.

The players can catch up to the assassin anywhere along the route between the town where they started and a distant town recently sacked by orcs. There is a lair to explore in-between if they haven't caught him before he reaches it. The lair includes some encounters alluding to the nature of the Tund Dust.

It seems that the adventure assumes that you are going to make it to the sacked village whether you catch the assassin or not. This is fairly bothersome since, as mentioned before, the encounter with the druid Cuhulain is pivotal to the second part of the adventure.

After reaching the town, the party encounters Cuhulain. Cuhulain is a cleric/druid belonging to an organization called "the path." He knows that something is wrong or tainted about the area. He informs the party of the problems with the natural order, that there is an orc assault on the dwarvish stronghold to the north, and that he thinks they are related. Further, he can tell the party more about the assassin (namely that he is a lackey of the main villain, a sorceress named Tonagma. Finally, he explains that he can help with the poisoned couple but in exchange the party must see to the situation at the dwarvish stronghold.

He offers two paths to get to the stronghold. Each is a site based scenario on its own, and between them they contain some interesting encounters and snippets of history. While parallel paths are a good thing in and adventure, it's unfortunate that the most interesting section of the adventure are mutually exclusive preventing the DM from getting full use of the adventure. However, it should be easy after the adventure for the DM to manufacture a reason to visit the unused location.

The last part of the adventure is the dwarven stronghold itself. The party soon learns that the orcs have succeeded in their siege, and are thrust into the position of intervening in the dwarf king's version of Custard's last stand. After this battle, the Dwarf king calls upon the party to prevent the sorceress from plundering the Tund Dust that is held deep within the dwarven vault, and asks them to retrieve it for safekeeping.

This last bit seems slightly illogical to me. It takes 3 talismans to open the vaults that hold the Tund Dust. The sorceress holds one talisman, the druid gave the characters one, and the king offers the last one. However, the king gives the character one talisman and asks them to pursue the sorceress. Which begs the question: What's the urgency of stopping the sorceress if she is short two talismans to retrieve the Tund Dust? And by giving the characters the last talisman and sending them to go get her, the characters only put the Tund Dust in peril. Now you might assume that there are other ways to open the chamber containing the Tund Dust, but the adventure doesn't indicate anything to this effect.

The final part of the adventure are 3 appendices. The first appendix is creature descriptions, including stat blocks for old favorites, plus some new creatures: mercury elemental, goran (an evil outsider), raging fish machine (a gnome construct), stizzilfish, three headed trolls, and yellow canyon wolves (all mutations caused by the Tund Dust.) The second appendix includes NPC write-ups. The final chapter details 7 new items, including the dwarven talismans and the Tund Dust, among other things.

Summary and Conclusions

Overall, the adventure is a solid effort. It has all of the basic elements desirable in a D20 adventure. For the most part it made good use of the rules, it has good cartography, complete creature and NPC descriptions where needed (and succinct NPC descriptions where the greater detail is not needed.) The interation with NPCs makes good use of the rules, providing a breakdown on what PCs can discover about the background from NPCs by their social skills and how well they roll. The adventure contains new creatures and items, a small local setting to adventure in complete with a small village, and goes above the call with the cutout counters, player handouts, and the pursuit resolution system.

The adventure has some decent idea content. The rationale behind the evolution of the scenario is believable for the most part. The major NPCs have well fleshed-out motives and a number of events in the adventure are logical outgrowths of the existence for the Tund Dust.

The first major weakness is that the presented background is woven into the story a little too tightly to easily be adapted to specific campaigns. Though some assumptions are reasonable or easily worked around (frex, there is no reason that the couple has to be a human/elven one; they could be any from any two nations or noble houses seeking an alliance) others are not (the origin of the Tund Dust is quite probably not going to work in a campaign with a well developed background and an alternate origin and reason for its existence may have to be derived and any consequences considered.) Though I don't expect these full length modules to be as bare bones as the mini-adventures I have reviewed in the past, some consideration given to alternate possibilities would have been a boon.

The second problem is that in many places, the flow of the adventure is assumed to occur in certain ways where logically there are a number of other possibilities. Starting from the beginning, it is assumed that the party is fairly altruistic and well known; alternate motivations or compulsions should have been considered for the party. Continuing, it is assumed that the party does not abandon the search for the assassin early and that they eventually make it to the sacked town, when it is quite possible they might abandon the pursuit or catch the assassin early.

Overall, this is a fairly solid module with a lot of usable material, but may require some additional "custom fitting" and troubleshooting by the DM.

Ratings

Ready to use material -- 5. Very good. New creatures, new magic, good maps, solid NPCs, plus bonus of cutout counters and pursuit system.
Idea content -- 3. Though some encounters shine through, many are fairly typical, and those good ones are strongly dependent upon the assumed world background.
Value for money -- 4. Good use of space, better page count/buck than NeMoren's Vault.

Overall substance rating -- 4.
Overall style rating -- 4. (Good production values but art seems a little subpar.)
 

Nominated for 2 ENnies!

A fully-illustrated, 44-page d20 fantasy adventure for characters levels 5 to 7. This adventure features cinematic action, powerful and detailed villains, new monsters, new magic items, cardstock color counters, color maps and handouts as well as a new system for prolonged overland chases. Set in The West Wood Barony, introduced in NeMoren's Vault, this story-based adventure features a wedding, a foul plot, a mytic element and a dying dwarven nation. An epic storyline with endless possibilities
 

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