Simon Collins
Explorer
Beware! This review contains spoilers.
This is not a playtest review.
Devilish Dens is an adventure accessory containing ten lairs of outsiders, suitable for medium to high-level characters, from Fast Forward Entertainment.
Devilish Dens is a 48-page mono softcover accessory costing $12.99. Though margins and font size are reasonable, there are several areas of white space, three pages of ads, and the OGL takes up another two pages. This space would have been better used by including the free lair available online from the Fast Forward website. The art is fairly minimal, covering small sketches of the ten outsiders featured in the lairs all on the first two pages, with no further art throughout the book. The cover art itself is extremely reminiscent of 1st Edition adventure covers, and will appeal to those who liked that style - I'm not one of them. It shows a winged female outsider wielding a smoking sword on the ramparts of a castle. The maps that accompany each lair are clear and simple, scaled and with compass direction where appropriate, although the internal scale switches between 5 ft and 10 ft per grid square on different maps. The writing style is somewhat facile and clumsy, whilst editing is average.
The accessory begins by introducing us to the ten outsiders whose lairs are the focus of the adventures. Each outsider is taken from Fast Forward's Encyclopaedia of Demons & Devils, but that tome is not required for play. The ten outsiders featured are Abaddon, Asmodeus, Azazel, Beelzebub, Flauros, Iblis, Lilith, Kosk, Marochias, and Shaitan. The text gives a very basic overview of the outider's general goals and tactics.
I was initially concerned that the actual outsiders might be used as deities, as Asmodeus' role in the first adventure is as a deity to a cult led by a cleric, but the outsiders do actually appear in the remaining 9 adventures - that said, there are other references to outsiders as deities and you would want to be OK with this concept or be prepared to do some re-thinking in places.
The adventures seem designed for characters of levels 5 to 15 though suitable character levels are not mentioned anywhere. One concern I had was the non-standard stat blocks used, and the errors within them (the CRs for the main protagonists do not seem to reflect their power - e.g. a 15HD devil with a string of special attacks and qualities, 140 hp, and an AC of 27, is offered at CR 9) . In one lair, a plague of locusts is given an EL of "Army Status". This EL (also proposed as a CR later on) is used in several places where opponents are faced in large numbers - 30 lemures are given the Army Status, for example. This makes it harder to judge the character level the lair is suitable for.
There are several mentions of magical items made in the adventures that refer to items from other Fast Forward products and are not detailed in this product.
Conclusion
The ambience of Devilish Dens may appeal to those who still enjoy 1st-Edition style dungeon bashing. The product is strong on tactical advice and weak on roleplaying advice. There's a number of concerns with stats, plot congruity, ecology, and missing information on magical items. There is no information about suitable party levels, amending the lairs for parties of different sizes or levels, and I found several instances where useless information is included in the lair description (for example, a detailed explanation of a magical curtain that only harms demons but leaves humanoids untouched). The best thing I can say is that some of the adventures may lend ideas or be used for the bones in creating one's own adventure.
This is not a playtest review.
Devilish Dens is an adventure accessory containing ten lairs of outsiders, suitable for medium to high-level characters, from Fast Forward Entertainment.
Devilish Dens is a 48-page mono softcover accessory costing $12.99. Though margins and font size are reasonable, there are several areas of white space, three pages of ads, and the OGL takes up another two pages. This space would have been better used by including the free lair available online from the Fast Forward website. The art is fairly minimal, covering small sketches of the ten outsiders featured in the lairs all on the first two pages, with no further art throughout the book. The cover art itself is extremely reminiscent of 1st Edition adventure covers, and will appeal to those who liked that style - I'm not one of them. It shows a winged female outsider wielding a smoking sword on the ramparts of a castle. The maps that accompany each lair are clear and simple, scaled and with compass direction where appropriate, although the internal scale switches between 5 ft and 10 ft per grid square on different maps. The writing style is somewhat facile and clumsy, whilst editing is average.
The accessory begins by introducing us to the ten outsiders whose lairs are the focus of the adventures. Each outsider is taken from Fast Forward's Encyclopaedia of Demons & Devils, but that tome is not required for play. The ten outsiders featured are Abaddon, Asmodeus, Azazel, Beelzebub, Flauros, Iblis, Lilith, Kosk, Marochias, and Shaitan. The text gives a very basic overview of the outider's general goals and tactics.
I was initially concerned that the actual outsiders might be used as deities, as Asmodeus' role in the first adventure is as a deity to a cult led by a cleric, but the outsiders do actually appear in the remaining 9 adventures - that said, there are other references to outsiders as deities and you would want to be OK with this concept or be prepared to do some re-thinking in places.
The adventures seem designed for characters of levels 5 to 15 though suitable character levels are not mentioned anywhere. One concern I had was the non-standard stat blocks used, and the errors within them (the CRs for the main protagonists do not seem to reflect their power - e.g. a 15HD devil with a string of special attacks and qualities, 140 hp, and an AC of 27, is offered at CR 9) . In one lair, a plague of locusts is given an EL of "Army Status". This EL (also proposed as a CR later on) is used in several places where opponents are faced in large numbers - 30 lemures are given the Army Status, for example. This makes it harder to judge the character level the lair is suitable for.
There are several mentions of magical items made in the adventures that refer to items from other Fast Forward products and are not detailed in this product.
Conclusion
The ambience of Devilish Dens may appeal to those who still enjoy 1st-Edition style dungeon bashing. The product is strong on tactical advice and weak on roleplaying advice. There's a number of concerns with stats, plot congruity, ecology, and missing information on magical items. There is no information about suitable party levels, amending the lairs for parties of different sizes or levels, and I found several instances where useless information is included in the lair description (for example, a detailed explanation of a magical curtain that only harms demons but leaves humanoids untouched). The best thing I can say is that some of the adventures may lend ideas or be used for the bones in creating one's own adventure.
