Eberron: Whispers of the Vampire's Blade

[IronWolf]

A member of the Brelish spy network has stolen a powerful magic sword and gone rogue. In pursuit of the fugitive are operatives from a number of other factions intent on recovering the traitor, his stolen weapon, or both. As the slippery agent flees across Khorvaire, only the most relentless heroes will stay on the intrigue-laced trail and capture their target.

Whispers of the Vampire’s Blade is a stand-alone adventure for the Dungeons & Dragons game that will immerse your characters in the Eberron campaign setting. Designed to challenge 4th-level D&D heroes, it hurls them across the continent of Khorvaire with action-packed overland and aerial travel.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Whispers of the Vampire's Blade

Whispers of the Vampire’s Blade is the third adventure in the new Eberron series. Written by David Noonan and published by Wizards of the Coast, Whispers is 32 black and white pages and retails for $9.99. Interior covers are used for black and white maps. Because the book is a WoTC product, there is no SRD or OGL license so the full book is utilized.

Interior art is handled by Steve Prescott who does a great job brining to life the characters and situations of the book. The maps by Todd Gamble, are readable but a little on the simple side, which is a shame when we have other cartographers liked Ed from SkeletonKey Games who’ve worked for many third party companies, that could’ve handled this. Editing is fair as far as nothing leaping from the page.

The book starts off with some adventure background and synopsis, as well as a quick rundown on how to run an event-based adventure. Unlike a site-based adventure, this one takes for granted that the big fights will take more resources, as the party will have more time to supply and replenish themselves outside of each combat. It’s a school of thought that has some fans and I use it myself to tighten the sense of drama in each combat but it takes a skilled GM as pushing the characters the wrong way in just the slightest could result in party deaths that would’ve been avoided by using less creatures or less powerful opposition.

The strange thing about this adventure is that it doesn’t directly tie into Shadows of the Last War. Instead, the players are approached about an employment opportunity but to gain the job, they have to earn the employer’s respect by subduing a dire ape. After that, they’re hired on to hunt down a former spy master of the Dark Lanters named Lucan whose no longer quite human and has made off with an ancient item from the previous war, the Soul Blade. Lucan is a vampire in thrall to another whose lair he uncovered in the course of his duties.

Now the rest of the adventure reads like a good action movie. The players have lots of opportunities to chase Lucan and his sister down, to engage in skyship combat, to hunt for their prey in a masked ball, and fight against old foes onboard the rail before coming to the end of the run in a ruined ziggurat.

There’s a difference between a movie and a D&D game though. Lucan in essence, is scripted to get away for every encounter that he has with the players. Say that the players catch up to Lucan’s coach in the beginning of the game. Well, he’ll duck into the forest.

In other situations, the players are set up to fail in little ways. For example, during the masquerade, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to sneak any weapons larger than say, a dagger into the ball without magic or high ranks in sleight of hand. Lucan on the other hand, doesn’t have that problem thanks to a glove of storing. Sure, the player’s might have a similar item, but Lucan also has many innate abilities that put him at a distinct advantage and doesn’t care if innocents get hurt. In most games, players aren’t going to be casting rays of flame or burning hands in a room full of people. Heck, even the aftermath notes clearly, “The goal of this encounter is for Lucan to escape.”

It’s a railroad fest that can quickly grate on even the most even-tempered player. A person preference of mine is completely ignored here. Including monster stats in the adventure. I don’t know when it became fashionable for companies to refer to the Monster Manual by giving the creature’s name and hit points, but cracking up the Monster Manual and reading it for game statistics is not something I’d rather do while preparing the adventure. I’m also a little old fashioned in that I like text to be read aloud or paraphrased to be boxed as opposed to just set in italic text.

A skilled GM can easily weave Lucan’s escapes into the campaign cloth and role play him as the villain that player’s love to hate. But my group and their way of playing wouldn’t put up with the lead around the nose. If you’re going to have a villain like Lucan, you have to have some space separating the chases. Having the characters run after him again and again and again, only to have him make an uncharacteristic last stand, as somehow, he fights off not only the influence of his master, but also the blade, he decides to have a showdown.

What’s just as strange is that the tie to the previous adventure are thin. While the characters are looking for Lucan aboard the Lightning Rail, which as stated by the text, they can’t find him until Lucan makes a move, they come under attack from Scimitar, a servant of the Lord of Blades who wants something that the party may have. That's one of the few tie in's to the previous products and entirely disposable.

Like I said, it’s a thin strip to connect the adventures.

The good news in that is that you can easily run this as a separate adventure and not have any issue with continuity. The bad news is that if you do run it as part of the series, it’s a thin connection.

There are some good role-playing opportunities and the GM is once again given a short tour of many of the buttons of Eberron. Players get to sail on an airship, fight on the Lightning Rail, take up arms for the Dark Lanters and fight against the minions of the Lord of Blades. There are several areas that GM’s can fill in with their own adventure seeds and ideas. The players have numerous rest steps along the way not detailed by the adventure and a few ideas for further adventure, such as taking arms against some bandit sahuagin. It’s just not as well executed as it could’ve been.

 

[tylerthehobo]

I agree. I'm prepping to run this adventure for my Eberron party, and I feel a little ripped off. I would've rather had something that tied into the first adventure directly, instead of a "Part 2" that is no where near as clever as Part I. Maybe Grasp of the Emerald Claw will bring it all full circle - will wait and see. Anybody played that one yet? Does it give a grand finale to the cycle-that's-not-a-cycle?

 

[Waylander the Slayer]

Quick comment: i have recently noticed a trend on your reviews of starting a sentence in the following manner (IK guide as well) " see, Lucian is" "see, the players don't". The "see" is not needed in the sentences and detracts from the otherwise fantastic reviews.

 

[Xorial]

I'm in the proces of running this series of adventures on a party. I know that the conection is thin. But in alot of serials, some interconnection in the episodes may appear thin....until the final show. I'm not going to claim that there will be something in the final adventure that makes the thin connection seem bigger, but who can say? The main connection is something that was neglected. The bigger connection is the Emerald Claw. They are shadowing the adventurers. Possibly sizing up the competition. It may be a small connection, but it can be expanded on later.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Waylander, thanks for the heads up on the 'see' part. I noticed I was having the same issue with 'now' and try to cut it out. I'll beo nthe lookout for it.

 

[olshanski]

I played in the adventure.
The lightning railroad is a too-apt metaphor for the entire adventure. There appeared to be several instances when the plot had gaping holes, or band-aids to thwart the players from actually catching the bad guy. It was aggravating to play. (not aggravating in the way of a bad guy getting away because you as a player made a mistake, and then you finally get to correct the mistake later... but rather aggravating in that the adventure was written so that no matter what the players do they are actually helpless pawns, moved at whim by the writer of the adventure that wanted you to follow his script and not really be in charge of your own destiny).

I haven't read the adventure, but many of the scenes which are supposed to come off as "cinematic" do come off as cinematic... as an old 1940s serialized adventure like flash gordon or king of the rocket men. This is not necessarily a good thing, as the ridiculous escapes which I suppose may have been thrilling 60 years ago are groan-inducing cliche today. Some of it was pushed to dangerous extremes.

Our DM was forced to bend the rules nearly to the breaking point to keep the railroad going.

In the first adventure in the series, the players are given an extra-dimensional haversack filled with supplies to get them on thier way... not bad... but this is the seed of a future problem.

In the ballroom encounter, it is correct that the players had no weapons, so we had a monk and a summoned alligator grapple the main villian, once he was grappled, everone else dog-piled on, pinned the villian, and disarmed him. Once Lucian's sword was gone, one character grabbed it and threw it in the haversack before running to the hills.

We were willing to let the villian get away, since we had his major weapon... but the DM had to be heavy handed to get us to go along with what the rest of the adventure intended. We got on the airship, as did the villian. We did our part to find the villian on the airship, but were heavy-handedly prevented from doing anything about the bad guy... it began to get us angry. Then following the script (which we as players were really helpless to do anything about), the airship eventually starts to crash. As luck would have it, the character with the major weapon in the haversack does not have the mobility to escape the airship, as he is trapped underdeck... his only hope is to climb into an extradimensional storage compartment... (what happens when you take an extradimensional space inside another extradimesional space)?

 

[sfedi]

I don't agree about looking up Monster descriptions in the Monter Manual.
It's ok to save space and not re-fill with already owned material.

I like to use my books and not have that information repeated in every product.

 

[sfedi]

A thing I hated about this module is how spoiling is the title.

It's supposed to be a mystery that's uncovered in the last encounter.

Grrrr.....

 

[MerricB]

This review was originally posted on the 3rdedition.org site

Whisper of the Vampire's Blade is the second adventure module to be published by Wizards of the Coast that is set in the campaign world of Eberron. It can be played quite effectively as a stand-alone module, but is also designed to be the third part of the series that began with The Forgotten Forge (which can be found in the Eberron Campaign Setting) and continued with Shadows of the Last War. It is a 32 page softcover book, staple-bound, with interior black and white illustrations.

Designed for use with four 4th level characters, Whisper is an interesting module. In essence, it is a chase module, of the sort that one sees with The Mummy Returns or possibly Van Helsing - a variety of exotic locales and situations as the PCs try to catch up to the fugitive.

This adventure is written in a manner that makes it very easy for the DM to run. Each encounter begins with a "stat block" in which the prevailing conditions are described: Light, Sound, Reaction and Important Rules. That last is quite interesting, as it gives rules references that are likely to be used in the encounter. For instance, the first encounter (Impromptu Audition) notes that Grapple (PHB 155) and Forest Terrain (DMG 87) will be needed in the running of the encounter. This is, quite simply, a brilliant idea and I applaud Wizards for doing so in this adventure - I hope to see it again in the future!

The adventure is divided into five set pieces, each in different locations. A masquerade ball, a fight upon an airship, a fight in the lightning rail: these are some of the highlights of the adventure. All in all, the adventure has a very cinematic feel to it. It does evoke the pulp feel of the setting more than the noir, however.

I recently ran this adventure for one of my D&D groups. It is not a standard D&D adventure, but instead is something that evokes the exciting elements of Eberron quite convincingly. My main concern about the adventure is this: it is too linear.

At the end of each set piece, the fugitive must get away, or the adventure is over. Honestly, if the PCs did capture the fugitive in the first encounter, then there wouldn't be a problem for the storyline. That's fine; it's just that there'd be a lot of adventure left unused.

The adventure seems strained is in some of the transitions from set piece to set piece. Before the end of the adventure, it is quite possible that player fatigue may set in - "You mean he escaped again?" - and the PCs would seem to spend a little to long aboard the lightning rail. Some DM inventiveness is likely to be needed to fill in the holes.

This adventure incorporates urban, wilderness and dungeon sections, and I do think it is a fine addition to the Eberron line. Because of the use of devices that are very much part of Eberron, such as the Lightning Rail and the Airship, it probably would not port very well into another world, though perhaps the basic ideas would.

My players greatly enjoyed many of the encounters, and relished in the masquerade ball. The mysteries surrounding the fugitive were revealed in a natural progression and effectively so. However, the adventure leaves too many questions unanswered. Yes, the PCs will eventually catch the fugitive, but they won't learn why he was running, the secret of his blade, or many other interesting pieces of background in the adventure. This is a great flaw with the adventure.

Where this adventure might have been better served is if only half of it dealt with the chase. If the remainder of the adventure had then dealt with the consequences of what was discovered, then the railroaded feeling that some of my players felt would have been lessened.

My players and I did enjoy the adventure, but it could have been structured better.

Content: 3.5
The module provides the basis for an exciting and fun adventure, with a great variety of challenges. That is something I prize greatly in an adventure. It may be better served by taking some of the encounters out of context and placing them in a different adventure, so that its length does not become problematic for the players.

Layout/Artwork: 4
The cover is by Wayne Reynolds, who has prepared the covers for the previous Eberron products as well; I'm not a great fan of his style, but it works passably well. However, the interior artwork by Steve Prescott is exceptional. The maps, by Todd Gamble, are very good as well. I do have a reservation about the watermark, however; although it's generally quite effective, the italic text used for "read aloud" text doesn't show up very well against it. This is only a minor problem, however.

Originality: 4.5
I haven't seen a D&D adventure quite like this one, so I'm giving it high marks for what it does - and for doing it in a manner that looks like it works! Of course, the situations are drawn from literature and film, but that doesn't detract from the overall accomplishment.

Editing: 3
There are problems with some of the stats, mainly ignored size modifiers, which is a pity.

Overall: 3.5
Whisper of the Vampire's Blade is an fair to good adventure module that should provide several hours of entertainment to you and your players. It is well based in the world of Eberron and, to my mind, does a better job of evoking the special characteristics of that world than the Eberron Campaign Setting does.