Unhallowed Halls

Deep inside the hallowed halls of Grimm Thorpe University, a grim line is crossed when a professor"s experiments in alchemy and magic transform innocents into grotesque monstrosities. The power of transmutation is enticing, to say the least -- those who re-create the created know what it is to hold the mantle of godhood, if only for an instant. But a chance at godhood often leads down a crooked path to damnation ...

* Details on the mystic PC class, which uses divine magic to receive strange visions, or portents, of the present and the future
* Stats and a template for the nightlings -- ravenous once-human alchemical creations with black, chitinous skin and a dangerous gaze
* An appendix of personalities to guide PC investigation at the university

Unhallowed Halls
Written by Christina Stiles
Published by Atlas Games
80 b & w pages
$16.95

When I first heard of Unhallowed Halls, I actually thought it was a Call of Cthulhu module. After all, with a catch line like “What happens when science leads to terror?”, I don’t normally think of fantasy, but rather, well, science. As it turns out however, the module is a mystery adventure with a heavy emphasis on role playing that takes place in a small town where the party is invited to a fund raiser for a college.

At the fund raiser, the party gets to meet and intermingle with a wide variety of individuals. This is actually a big part of the module and players who aren’t into role playing and just enjoy hack and slash will probably have a hard time fitting in. In addition, if the GM is uncomfortable with talking to himself to portray two or more NPCs, he’ll have some problems of his own. In such a case, I would recommend that he writes out the dialog and passes copies around to the players for quick reading.

After the party is in town for a while, they’ll learn that not everything is right in the area. For example, there are rumors of monsters wandering the tunnels. There are missing students. There are funds missing from the school. To make matters worse, immediately after the ball, one of the guests at the fund raiser, the priestess, turns up missing. In short, there is something that requires the work of adventurers to handle.

The party will get to explore Grimm Thorpe University and see what the students are up to and perhaps encounter something that shouldn’t be there. Seems that whatever is making the students turn up missing hasn’t perfected the process yet as one of the creatures so made, a nightling, still possesses its intelligence and is willing to help the party finish it’s evil master.

During the course of the mystery, the party will search through the Grimm Thrope University, the Chancellor’s manor, university caverns and eventually discover that Charles Cavanaugh, one of the chancellors, is responsible for these dark deeds and worse, has allies. Part of this strains credibility though as it’s difficult to imagine that there would be organized and intelligent monsters lurking in the tunnels under the campus, especially large and open tunnels. In such a case, it might almost work better as a Call of Cthulhu module as such tunnel systems under schools are often packed with machinery and equipment that provides numerous hiding places for such monsters.

The creator of these creatures, the chancellor, Charles Cavanaugh, is no fool though and as a matter of fact, is the head of the department and is well-armed and equipped to deal with the party. The last encounter will more than make up to hack and slashers their desire to kill as they’ll face not only the professor’s minions and his own magical might, but also the strength of his allies, another wizard student and a hired assassin.

In addition to the adventure itself, the book includes several new magic items, monsters, and a new core class, the Mystic. One of the stranger new magic items, the Bag of Arms, holds undead arms that are able to animate and use the abilities that the possessor had in life. For example, here are monk arms that are able to use flurry of blows and stunning attacks as well as utilize evasion and the feats that the monks possessed in life.

The mystic core class though, is a full 20 level class that must be lawful in alignment. These divine spell casters gain special abilities that pertain to prophecy and portents. In many ways, the mystic is similar to the monk in that they do not use armor, but do gain armor class bonus as they go up in level in addition to adding their Charisma bonus to AC due to a connection with the divine.

Of course the main new monster, the nightling, is also fully statted out for the adventure. One of the worse things about the creatures is their ability to spread the disease. Those so affected become nightlings themselves.

The module boosts over twenty pages of detail on the NPCs within the adventure. One of the things I didn’t like though was that it didn’t provide stats for all the characters, only those that the party was likely to come into conflict with. The NPCs though make for excellent material for GMs who decide to use the setting after the adventure as there are many personality types that the players can encounter.

The art ranges from okay to great with some evocative illustrations done by Brian Figure and Chad Sergesketter. The maps are solid and easy to use. The adventure is laid out in standard two column format with all d20 mechanical information in gray text to show that it is OGC. Internal covers are not used and the OGC itself takes up less than a page. Editing is fairly good with the biggest gaff I caught being the recommended level. On the back, it’s recommended for party members of 6th-8th level and inside, for 4th-6th level characters. While it’s possible that lower level characters will survive the last fight, they’ll be bloodied and have friends to mourn while 8th level characters may respect the fight but not be challenged enough unless the GM adds some other goodies to the encounter.

If you’re looking for a game with a heavy emphasis on role-playing than Unhallowed Halls is for you.

Beware! This review contains spoilers.
This is not a playtest review.

Unhallowed Halls is an adventure suitable for PCs of either levels 6-8 (on the back cover) or 4-6 (if you read the inside) from Atlas games. I would suggest that the 6-8 is a better guideline if you want to keep the PCs alive (at one point the PCs could face a Wiz9, a Rog5/Asn2, Wiz3/Rog3, 1 x CR3, 4 x CR2, and up to 18 x CR 1/2 creatures in one combat).

Unhallowed Halls is an 80-page mono softcover product costing $16.95. Space usage is fairly average with a few chunks of white space and a 1/2 page ad, but margins and font are fairly decent. Art is average to good, and better than the mock mediaeval front cover depicting a costumed mage against a wood-effect background. The maps are a little small but clear, keyed and scaled. Writing style is average - clear and concise if a little dry and simplistic at times. Editing seems good.

The book begins with the background and overview of the adventure. Essentially, the chancellor of a wizard's college (Charles Cavanaugh) has turned to dark alchemical experimentation beneath the halls of the establishment. He has created an elixir that turns victims into creatures with black chitinous scales, and that fall under Cavanaugh's power once transformed. Cavanaugh intends using these creatures to attack the local temple as a test of their strength, and is aided in his efforts by various nefarious allies. The PCs aim is to stop the attack, and they enter the plot via an invitation to attend a party at the local temple to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the college.

Chapter One: The Grimm Thorpe Ball
This chapter gives various ideas for running the party at the local temple, focusing mainly on roleplaying and interactions between the various NPCs. The information includes different pieces of information that can be gleaned from Listen or Gather Information checks whilst mingling with the guests, most of which hook into the main plotline in various ways. The remainder of the chapter looks at some of the events that should take place over the course of the night and into the next morning, along with the possible clues left over from these events. There is also a sidebar giving information on the sun goddess of the local temple.

Chapter Two: The Village
This gives the stat block for the village of Grimm's Thorp, and various encounters the PCs might face as they explore the mayor's tower and its surrounds. Various clues to the plotline can be discovered here and a sidebar also details a new spell, Improved Animate Dead, which animates body parts.

Chapter Three: The University
This gives a descriptive tour of the wizard's college, as well as presenting the community stats, and some further possible clues.

Chapter Four: Into The Heart Of The Matter
This chapter begins by summarising the clues that could lead the PCs to exploring the tunnels that lie below the college and village grounds or the chancellor's manor. It also gives descriptions of these two areas and describes the possible encounters that might occur when the PCs investigate further.

Appendix 1: Personalities
This section describes about 40 NPCs giving information on each character's possible locations during the adventure, their background, appearance, some roleplaying notes (including behaviours and information known), and a quote, as well as level, class, race, and alignment. The villains and creatures also get a full stat block.

Appendix 2: Timeline
This gives a timeline of events from 11pm the day before the ball to noon the day after the ball during which period the events of the adventure unfold.

Appendix 3: The Mystic
During the adventure, the PCs can gain some information about the upcoming events from a visionary mystic called Juliana, who can see into the future on occasion. This appendix details this new 20-level class. The Mystic has some fairly powerful class features and seem to be a cross between a divine version of a sorcerer and a paladin with spells from 1st level, the ability to detect chaos, lay on hands, divine grace, divine fortitude, protection from chaos plus access to a slew of granted powers from 13th level onwards. The Mystic also gains some divinatory abilities such as scrying, portents (read a person's aura), and revelation (visions of past or future events). In addition, they get good Fort and Will saves, a cleric's attack bonus, an ever-increasing armour class bonus, and good skill gains.

Appendix 4: Nightlings
This is a template that can be added to any humanoid creature, which then becomes a magical beast with some rather nasty powers such as a paralyzing gaze, a lycanthropic-like attack, and damage reduction.

The book ends with an index.

Conclusion:
Unhallowed Halls is an interesting adventure in concept - mainly investigation/roleplaying with a few very tough combat opportunities. There is plenty of information on the characters that can be interacted with, their personalities, and the information they hold to move the plot along. The author has dealt with the timeline of events pretty well and the adventure will appeal to GMs and players who enjoy immersing themselves in their characters' personalities.

However, some aspects of the plot background do not hang together too well, mainly surrounding the dubious motivations of the NPCs and the weak or too-campaign-specific plot hooks. I suspect that the spawn ability of the nightlings and the poison laid as a trap for the PCs at the beginning of the adventure will catch most or all of the party members, transforming them into nightlings - I'm dubious as to how much fun that will be for players.

It also seems somewhat unbelievable that a large group of bandits, nightlings, worgs, carrion crawlers and bugbears all live in relative harmony beneath the college grounds. As mentioned above, the climactic encounter could well be a party-killer without some amendment by the GM before play. I found it hard to put my finger on it, but I found myself becoming slightly irritated by the tone used throughout the book, which seems to hint at a modern-day horror scenario translated into a fantasy setting - this didn't work too well for me, and it seems related to the use of modern-day language dropped into the text here and there. I found the Mystic class over-powered and careless in design - the mix of various powers from other core PC classes rankled.

The adventure requires a lot of hard work and preparation to run effectively, both in terms of amending some of the weaker aspects of the adventure but also in facing the challenge of roleplaying multiple personalities within a short space of time, leeking information slowly and appropriately to get the pace of the adventure right, and keeping the PCs on target in what could be quite a loose plotline. Recommended for experienced GMs with some time on their hands to make amendments to suit, and players with a desire to roleplay and investigate. Could well be a bridge too far for most.

Unhallowed Halls is a rather unusual d20 adventure. Unusual in that it's, to my knowledge, the only d20 adventure set at a magic University. Not the Hogwarts of Harry Potter, it seems a bit more something out of Animal House (or at least far more interesting than the college I went to.) The cover says it's for characters of levels 6 to 8, but the module itself says 4 to 6. It's softcover, 80 pages, and priced at a $16.95. The margins are also quite small, so in terms of text, it's a pretty good deal.

The set up is also a bit odd, but not unique - the characters are invited to a ball (like in a party. If you have players that are AC/DC fans, beware). At least one other d20 module starts off like this, one of the Freeport ones. But in that case, the PCs were invited to the ball because they were heroes of the city, at least temporarily, because of the previous adventures. In this case, it's somewhat tricky to explain why the PCs have been suddenly invited to a ball at a college that never existed in your game world until you bought this book, though several possibilities are suggested.

In my own game, it wasn't too hard to set up, because one of the PCs happens to be the daughter of the mayor of the village the players are sort of based around. So it's relatively plausible that a neighboring town might invite local politicians to a ball like this. But it could be tricky for the average fantasy game...

The adventure premise itself is pretty simple - one of the people at the college is up to no good, and some students have disappeared. (As this is mentioned on the back cover, I don't really consider it a spoiler). For the most part it works, and most of the adventure involves figuring out whose behind the plot. Which is generally pretty simple to do, as lots of potential clues are available.

There's not a whole lot of combat in the adventure. Basically one large combat, and that's it. Lots of roleplaying - talking/listening to people, to figure out what's going on.

I do have some reservations about the main villain's motivations - I really don't see what he gains from his villainous plot. Is it worth the risk? He's got a pretty cushy job. But then again, maybe he has tenure, and doesn't think it much of a risk.

The meat of this product is the descriptions of the town it takes place in, the magical university, and the small village around the university, and the inhabitants of them. While it's not one of those products that describes every single town member, those it does cover are detailed extremely well, which makes them feel relatively real.

I ran the adventure with 6 6th level characters. A 4th level Cleric (plus 2 levels of Half-Ogre), an 2nd Level Ranger/4th level Witch (from Mongoose's Quintessential Witch), a 4th Level Scout/2nd Level Rogue (both classes adapted from Traveller 20), a 4th Level Fighter/ 2nd Level Sorcerer, a 3rd Level Barbarian/3rd Level Sorcerer, and a 6th level Space Marine (a homebrew class, mostly like a Fighter).

Having the Quintessential Witch was a big factor, as they can detect contaminated water. Combat was not a problem for the most part, except the Marine & the Scout/Rogue didn't have magic weapons, only guns, which were more or less ineffective vs. the new monster introduced in the module, the Nightling (they have a damage resistance of 15 vs. non magic weapons).

There's some new d20 material, most notably a new core class, the Mystic. While I really liked the idea of the new core class, it's quite problematic. Why? Well, on first glance, it's basically like a divine version of a sorcerer. Knows several spells per level (from either the Cleric or Druid list), and can cast several spells per day without having to prepare them - similar to the sorcerer's charts, but usually 1 spell more. The basic premise of a divine sorcerer like character is solid enough, and it's actually mentioned as an alternative class in the DMG. But the rest of the class is where the problems lay. They're not allowed to wear armor, which seems something borrowed from previous editions of D&D, but get a defensive bonus, kind of like a monk. They also get 4 skill points a level, average base attack bonus, d8 for hit dice, and have two great saving throw progressions.

They also get a ton of special abilities. Including, which I think breaks the camel's back, from 13th to 20th level, any granted power from a clerical domain (non evil, anyway) that they want. So the net result is a very powerful class. It's somewhat restrictive, which I meant was supposed to balance it, but even so, is way out of line with the regular core classes.

Really, the only bad thing about this (other than the new core class) is that it's skimpy on stats in the adventure itself. It frequently says things like "Use the standard D20 stats" or just gives the very bare bones description of a person, stat wise, just their class, level and alignment. In most cases, there was room for a simple stat block, as about an inch of space is devoted to 1 line saying their class, level and alignment.

Still, this is a pretty major thing. Part of the reason people buy pre-made adventures is because of time. Having to stat all the NPCs yourself is a lot of grunt work. And often how you role-play NPCs depends on their stats, at least the numerical value of things like intelligence or charisma can give you guidelines. In many cases, space didn't seem to be an issue, either, as there was a large about of blank space (for OGL labeling purposes) around the description of a character's class/level.

Of course, conversely, being fairly stat free, makes it more system independant. So while it's for the d20 system, it should work for most fantasy games. The magic of the college is fairly vague, too, and should work with most systems.

Actually, with only little bit of work, it would also work as a scenario for a modern day horror game. The plot would make a bit more sense, too, if the main villain was a Lovecraft style nut-case, and it also solves another nitpicky problem - that of alignment. The main villain in the adventure is Lawful Evil. Now, in D&D, alignment is relatively tangible, you can detect it if you're a paladin or fairly low level spell caster. So people had to know this guy was evil.

The adventure gets a B, the new rules a D+ (The new class an F), and the source material (town, college, thorp) an A. So probably a B+, in total.