Simon Collins
Explorer
Beware! This review contains major spoilers.
This is the fourth booster adventure by AEG. It is designed for four to six characters of level 3-5. It costs $2.49.
Production and Presentation: This module is (theoretically) 16 pages but each page is only ½ the width of an A4 page. The front (soft)cover features poor colour artwork, the back cover features an introduction for the players to the adventure. There are two poor internal pieces of black & white artwork and the central pages contain a basic map of the tomb of the barrow king, sufficient to run the adventure. The final page and the inside back cover contains OGL bumpf. The inside front cover contains advertising. In addition, one of the pages contains a space for notes (i.e. a wasted page).
The Story: A cult devoted to the god of slaughter are kidnapping local villagers for their vile practices. They are using the site of an ancient burial ground as their base, leading the villagers to believe they work for the barrow king, an undead spirit said to haunt the ruins. The PCs job is to investigate. The burial ground contains a tomb to the barrow king, which is guarded by orc and human cultists, as well as containing various monsters, including a new monster – a construct (made of sewn on body parts and razors) called a chirurgeon, created by the cleric of the cult. Some prisoners are also held here. The final showdown is with the cleric, and the leader of the cult – a fighter with a rather nasty magical axe, who could be mistaken for the barrow king – there is no actual undead spirit of the barrow king in the adventure.
The High Points: The black axe of the cults leader, bestowing a negative level on a wielder of lawful alignment, and constantly dripping blood, is a nicely detailed magical item. One of the prisoners in a cage is actually a ghoul – a rather nasty surprise awaits the good deed-doer.
The Low Points: As the previous three AEG modules, this is again combat-focussed and relatively linear, despite the seeming mystery presented at the beginning of the module. The wasted ‘Notes’ page was annoying, perhaps it could have been replaced with some art. No, wait, perhaps not, considering the general quality of art in this module. I felt that the chirurgeon was the weakest of the monsters presented in the first four modules.
Conclusion: As with the previous modules in this series, you get what you pay for. This seemed to me the weakest of the first four but it still scrapes an average rating from me.
This is the fourth booster adventure by AEG. It is designed for four to six characters of level 3-5. It costs $2.49.
Production and Presentation: This module is (theoretically) 16 pages but each page is only ½ the width of an A4 page. The front (soft)cover features poor colour artwork, the back cover features an introduction for the players to the adventure. There are two poor internal pieces of black & white artwork and the central pages contain a basic map of the tomb of the barrow king, sufficient to run the adventure. The final page and the inside back cover contains OGL bumpf. The inside front cover contains advertising. In addition, one of the pages contains a space for notes (i.e. a wasted page).
The Story: A cult devoted to the god of slaughter are kidnapping local villagers for their vile practices. They are using the site of an ancient burial ground as their base, leading the villagers to believe they work for the barrow king, an undead spirit said to haunt the ruins. The PCs job is to investigate. The burial ground contains a tomb to the barrow king, which is guarded by orc and human cultists, as well as containing various monsters, including a new monster – a construct (made of sewn on body parts and razors) called a chirurgeon, created by the cleric of the cult. Some prisoners are also held here. The final showdown is with the cleric, and the leader of the cult – a fighter with a rather nasty magical axe, who could be mistaken for the barrow king – there is no actual undead spirit of the barrow king in the adventure.
The High Points: The black axe of the cults leader, bestowing a negative level on a wielder of lawful alignment, and constantly dripping blood, is a nicely detailed magical item. One of the prisoners in a cage is actually a ghoul – a rather nasty surprise awaits the good deed-doer.
The Low Points: As the previous three AEG modules, this is again combat-focussed and relatively linear, despite the seeming mystery presented at the beginning of the module. The wasted ‘Notes’ page was annoying, perhaps it could have been replaced with some art. No, wait, perhaps not, considering the general quality of art in this module. I felt that the chirurgeon was the weakest of the monsters presented in the first four modules.
Conclusion: As with the previous modules in this series, you get what you pay for. This seemed to me the weakest of the first four but it still scrapes an average rating from me.
