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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2011288" data-attributes="member: 172">Black Sails Over FreeportBlack Sails Over Freeport is a campaign-style "mega-adventure" for Green Ronin's Freeport setting. The book is written by Brian E. Kirby, Robert Lawson, William Simoni, and Robert J. Toth.The adventure specifies a 6th level party at the beginning (and cleverly provides a method to accommodate odd-sized party.) The adventure does not specify a level range that the party is likely (or will need) to advance through the adventure, and the wide array of ELs in the last act shed little light on this.A First LookBlack Sails Over Freeport is possibly the largest d20 System adventure since Necromancer Games' d20 remake of the Gygax classic Necropolis. This massive softback volume weighs in at 256 pages, for an MSRP of $32.95 US.The cover is once again graced by the talents of WotC alumni artist Wayne Reynolds, one of my personal favorites. As with other Freeport supplements, Reynolds' work helps bring the feel of the city of Freeport to life. The cover depicts an undead pirate poised on the edge of a ship, with another ship and a burning city (presumably Freeport) in the backdrop.The interior is black and white and up to the usual Green Ronin high standard for layout and clarity. The interior is illustrated by the Toren "Macbin" Atkinson, Ramsey Hong, Steve Lawton, Chris Keefe, Ralph Horsley, Marcio Fiorito, David Griffith, Joseph Wigfield, and Britt Martin. The styles of these artist vary more than those selected for many recent Green Ronin works, but overall the work is very good, with some particularly good pieces among them.A Deeper Look(‘Ware ye! There be spoilers ahead!)When I first read the background for Black Sails Over Freeport, I thought to myself "Pirates of the Carribean!" But then, I guess that is only fair, because when I first saw the trailer for Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl, I thought "Freeport!" considering that the Freeport: City of Adventure book had its share of seafaring zombie horror.The adventure itself is arranged into three acts, the first two of which are further subdivided into parts. The book also has a introduction detailing the background of the adventure and providing a synopsis, an epilogue, handouts to photocopy, a dramatis personae section providing statistics blocks for creatures encountered during the adventure (with new items, magic, and creatures in sidebars), and a map of Freeport. Minor immediate quibble: there is no "permission to photocopy" statement for the handouts for those out there who have to deal with copy bullies.The adventure includes city, seafaring, wilderness (island), and dungeon portions, and feature both character interaction and combat challenges.The history behind the story revolves around a god by the name of Yarash. Yarash is the god of not-so-nice pirates (I guess like Barbosa from PotC), as opposed to Harrimast, who seems to be the god of a bit nice pirates (like Jack Sparrow, I suppose.) Naturally, there two deities had a history that Yarash ended up on the wrong side of, and Yarash was out for vengeance.To make a long backstory short, Yarash enlisted 5 undead lieutenants called the Full Fathom Five and equipped each of them with an artifact from his power. The rampage of their unstoppable fleet threatened to bring the wrath of the mainland upon Freeport. The only way that the Freeport fleet prevailed was when on of the Full Fathom Five betrayed his master and delivered his artifact, a sextant, to the Freeport fleet that would let them lose the Five in a region known as Hell's Triangle. When they succeeded, Harramist threw Yarash into an abyssal prison and exiled the remaining members of the Five to four islands that can old be reached through Hell's triangle.This all is not only history, but pretty obscure history since the participants, who weren't too flattered by the incident, paid to make sure references to it got lost. Now the islands where the Full Fathom, uh, four, were exiled are legend. A legend that speaks of a lot of treasure, naturally.Some years later, Yarash conceives a scheme that will allow him to escape his otherworldly prison and exact vengeance, and trapped evil gods tend to do. Also as such things often go, it will invariably involve the PCs. To restore himself, Yarash needs all of the artifacts he gave to his followers. Including the sextant which has been lost since it returned to Freeport years ago.As mentioned earlier, the adventure is divided into three acts. The first act is set in Freeport. As an outgrowth of earlier Freeport adventures, some orcs have been brought in to do what nobody else in Freeport wants to do: rebuild Milton's Folly. Against this backdrop, the players are thrust into the campaign when they are asked to hold a map to the legendary Yarashad, the islands where the remants of the Full Fathom Five are imprisoned. One thing leads to another, and soon the PCs are investigating how to get there... which means finding the sextant. At the same time, cultists of Yarash (Yay! Cultists! Now it feel like Freeport!) are also seeking out the sextant to free their deity.One oddity I would like to point out at this juncture. The orcs that appear here have aspects drawn from the GR game Ork!, to include deities and somewhat silly speech patterns. I would have thought that for a d20 product, if you wanted to play up the "d20 Ronin-verse", the first choice for inspiration would have been Wrath & Rage. That aside, what I really would like to point out is that the author flat out admits that Ork! is a comedic game. This comedic undertone continues in places through the campaign in other ways.In some groups, that will play fine. However, a lot of folks follow Freeport because it represented dark cultists and gritty pirate action. Combine that with the fact that there are many elements of this adventure that are a bit campy to begin with, you might be skirting disaster for the mood for some groups. That being the case, a GM who wants to play up a darker Freeport tone might want to come prepared to play down some of the more comedic bits.The second act has the PCs traveling to the Isles of the Damned in search of the legendary treasures. To get to the treasures, they find out, they need the other four artifacts. And, of course, the artifacts are in the possession of the master of each item, the former members of the Full Fathom Five.There are four themed islands, and the four are no longer allies in any credible way. The scheme and plot against each other. Daen rules numerous undead on the Ilse of Undeath. Zoltan Zaska, with his artifact that acts like undeath-beating viagra, rules over his island of tribes which he fathered, and forces them to fight; Zaska rules from a skull-like floating fortress. Ahunatum (a.k.a. Black Jenny Ramsey) rules over the island of the white gorilla, which features intelligent white gorillas lording over human slaves. Finally, the undead drow Moab creates mutants in his underwater castle.Is anyone else getting the campy pulp vibe here? I thought so. But it promises to be interesting. Aside from the obvious distinctions above, each of the islands has a dungeon-like encounter area. In short, each of the islands is more site-based than Act I.At this point, the PCs can go to any of the four islands. As they are likely to get enough experience to advance, it seems this will cause the challenge to vary depending on the order they take. Eyeballing ELs to check for this, I can see that many of the ELs are very high... as much as 20. Those EL 20 are sort of a options, but things PCs may run into nonetheless. Some inline challenges are on the order of 10-15, which is pretty stiff for characters who aren't guaranteed to come out of act I with more than level 7.After the four islands, it's not all over. The PCs need to use the artifacts to overcome the challenges of Yarashad, Yarash's island. And here lies the big chance for a big payoff. There's a good chance that the players could get into it deep here, but the authors provide some hints to help the players along.Act III is much more succinct compared to the previous two. The political sitation back at Freeport has boiled out of control with riots in the street and the PCs have unwittingly (the author hopes...) brought the artifacts back that will free Yarash's avatar. It's here that the authors hope to put the desperate pace back into the game (you really expected there to be one across the 120 pages that comprise part II? C'mon!) The PCs have to deal with three threats at once: the orc riots, the political machinions of the war on the mainland. And yes, they will have to deal with what Yarash hath wrought, in a rather straightforward manner compared to the rest of the adventure. (Think the end of "Conan the Destroyer" and you'll be pretty close.)ConclusionsThis is a big adventure and there is a lot to say about it – even that hasn't been said.I'll start with the positives. The adventure has a very pulpy feel, especially in the island sequence. To put it succinctly, it just seems like it would be a lot of fun. Further, there are some really clever little ideas strewn throughout the adventure. Just wait until you see how to deal with the issue of "how do the PCs get all this treasure out of here..."Further, I am really impressed with the level of support and detail that the adventure provides. Important NPCs are given extensive background and play notes that should give a GM a really good idea how to run various characters. Considering some of the problems below, this cuold be a much needed feature in keeping the adventure flexible and giving the GM options. We've come a long way since Isle of Dread.Other nice points of support are the props, though again, the publisher probably should have included a "permission to copy" notice.Another nice touch is that there are ad hoc/roleplaying bonus XP at various juncture.On to the not so flattering points.The biggest potential problem is that some of the transitions seems very linear in nature. Though PCs are given some room to make choices, in some places, instead of structuring alternate routes through the adventure, the author chooses the stick over the carrot in getting things to the next scene. There aren't any major plot bottlenecks directly in the adventure, but it seems that a modestly paranoid party could derail the adventure by not following the author's assumptions in a few places, and a little "troubleshooting" assistance would be useful.Another point that concerns me is that I have no clear idea looking at the adventure if the party level will match the challenges at various points. There appears to be no estimation or tabulation of how many XP are doled out, and the ELs seem all over the map. I sense a GM will have to do lots of adjustments on the fly.Finally, as I mentioned, some GMs might need to downplay some comedic content if they are looking for the somewhat grim tone that the book seems to project on the outside.Overall Grade: C+ -Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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