Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 8615187" data-attributes="member: 8461">Coming to the final entry in the Tomes limited series, 1999's <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17283/Axe-of-the-Dwarvish-Lords-2e?affiliae_id=820" target="_blank">Axe of the Dwarvish Lords</a>, I found myself thinking just one thing as I re-read this book."Dwarves. Why did it have to be dwarves?"Now, I've <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/complete-looking-back-at-the-leatherette-series-phbr-dmgr-hr-and-more.677493/post-8178803" target="_blank">mentioned before</a> that I've never been a particular fan of dwarves. While gnomes are an example of a D&D race that have no real identity to them, dwarves have always had too much, at least to my mind. The presentation of dwarven culture, and the stereotypical tropes and attitudes therein, were always so strong that they seemed to overshadow any particular dwarf's individuality. Quite often, a given dwarf is "fleshed out" by changing just one of their typical characteristics - the drinking, the emphasis on clan structure, the craftsmanship, the subterranean lifestyle, the hatred of giants/goblins, the chanting songs, the emphasis on beards, etc. - and calling it a day.But this isn't a rant about D&D's dwarves in general. Rather, it's an explanation as to why, as soon as I picked this book up, I found myself struggling to hold my interest. Though to be perfectly fair, this did manage to keep it...barely. It helps that the Tomes series plays into traditional D&D-isms by design, evoking the classical aspects of the game and leaning into them. So a dwarf-centric quest that hits all the highlights you'd expect is a feature rather than a bug.In this case, the vast majority of the adventure is a classic dungeoncrawl to retrieve the eponymous Axe...and that's about it. In terms of scope, it's surprisingly restrained compares to the last two Tomes adventures, but I can't fault this completely; unlike, say, the Rod of Seven Parts, this one doesn't connect to ancient demon wars nor does the Axe have the power to reshape reality. It's scope is entirely political/military in nature, and only for one race at that, so the limited feel is understandable.I will say that I liked the villains that this adventure introduced. Tairdo and Qamhuul should be held up as examples for how not to make your villains cardboard cutouts. While they're fairly straightforward in their nefariousness, their presentations sufficient details that you can get an idea for just how twisted (though not necessarily threatening) these guys are. For instance, Tairdo's spell list has numerous "named" spells (e.g. evard's black tentacles, mordenkainen's disjunction, etc.) that he's renamed after himself. There's no mechanical differences, just that he's put his own name in, with the text describing how he'll explain that he invented all of those spells himself, and has just been too busy to correct the wider "misunderstandings" about who the real inventor is. It's little things like that which make it clear exactly what sort of person the PCs are dealing with.The nameless hordes of goblins who make up the rank-and-file villains are something else altogether. While I applaud having the various generic stat blocks all on a single page for easy reference, the way in which those goblins are utilized (these are your basic goblins up against PCs of level 13-15) made me think of the kobolds from <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17086/Dragon-Mountain-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank">Dragon Mountain</a>. The difference being that this book borrows a lot of the various rules from Player's Option: Combat & Tactics, such as overbearing, shield walls, spear hedges, etc. The rules are all listed here in full, so there's no need to bring another book to the table, but honestly I get the feeling that if all of these advanced military tactics - which have various game statistics and modifiers - are brought forward in a campaign where they've never been used before, some players might cry foul. After all, suddenly introducing these sorts of military formations out of nowhere runs the risk of making it seem like the DM is artificially powering-up the bad guys. At the very least, it invites the PCs to try similar things on their own, and that might not be a door a DM wants to open.I should mention that the Axe itself is, in the same tradition as the Rod from The Rod of Seven Parts expanded on quite a bit here. Not only are its powers, abilities, and curses all given a great deal of greater information, but we also get never-before-seen write-ups for four attendant (minor) artifacts that were used in its creation: the Brutal Pick, Earthheart Forge, Anvil of Songs, and Shaping Hammer. It's interesting that these aren't necessarily a "set" of items in terms of them having resonant powers. Unlike the pieces of the Rod or the Hand and Eye of Vecna, the only ways that the Great Tools (as the set is called) interact is with regard to how some of them can be used to destroy others...including the Axe (which is properly called the Fierce Axe).On a minor note, if you hunt down a used copy of this, make sure that the map booklet is still attached in the back, otherwise you'll have a hard time running some of these areas.My overall impression is that while you can call this an epic D&D adventure, it's the most basic one around. Straightforward in its presentation, impactful only for a single demihuman race, and without even much in the way of supporting material (i.e. this has no articles in Dragon magazine adding to it that I can recall), this adventure is what you get when you try to make a relatively boring premise as flavorful as you can. How much that works is questionable; if the icing is delicious, and the cake matter itself is tasteless, is the dessert a good one? How you answer that will likely be how you feel about this module.Overall, Axe of the Dwarvish Lords closes out the Tomes series with a thud rather than a resounding thwack, which makes it all the more appropriate that the next series is one that goes out of its way to avoid the usual D&D tropes...Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.</blockquote>

Verification