trancejeremy
Adventurer
Ever since the release of B2 Keep on the Borderlands, many low level modules have taken the basic premise of describing a small fort or town and then a nearby adventuring locale.
Stonepick Crossing, an OSRIC module by Mark Morrison and from Expeditious Retreat Press, condenses this, by essentially combining the adventuring location with the home base. Stonepick Crossing itself is a small town set atop of a dam built by dwarves long ago in order to flood a cavern of goblins. That last bit of detail is mostly irrelevant, but the town itself is basically itself a small dungeon. That is, the top part of Stonepick Crossing is a town, the middle part is part town, part dungeon, and then the lowest level is a dungeon.
So none of that pesky overland travel to get in the way. That could be a plus or a minus, actually, depending on if you like that or not. Instead, it's more something of a mystery. Local inhabitants have gone missing. Presumably the PCs will investigate. It's not a particularly deep mystery, with the PCs getting a direct clue to the culprit. But then unrelated to that, there is a small dungeon. Well, rather, two small dungeons.
All in all, there are 70 keyed locations, about 45 for the town and the rest for the dungeons and villain. Considering the module is only 12 pages (including OGL), that's comparatively packed, and the level of detail is actually decent, with sparse but colorful descriptions of places and NPCs.
At the same time, given the price for the module ($12 print, $6 pdf), it's a little skimpy (and thus so is this review), at least the adventure portion. It will do for a session at most, and not a long one at that. I liked it a lot, I just wish there were more to it.
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