Hellstone Deep

[HalWhitewyrm]

There was a time when darkness reigned. In a war lost to history and myth, the dread God Chairos engaged on a campaign of destruction and conquest. His goal was to topple the existing pantheon of Gods, and to establish a dark new order in which he was supreme…a goal in which he was nearly successful. Only after a long and vicious campaign between Chairos' diabolic forces and the celestial armies of good were his evil plans torn asunder, and the God of Destruction himself forever undone.

But evil never dies. For Chairos' mightiest weapon in his dark campaign - the Chain of Scars - has been discovered. Draz Ghulan, a fiendish general with his mind set on revenge, has rekindled the flames of the ancient conflict with his burning hatred. In his possession lies the Chthonic Heart, the one item capable of reactivating the awesome power of the Chain of Scars. Unless Ghulan is stopped, Chairos' lost campaign of terror and annihilation will begin anew, and the awesome and untold powers of the Chthonic Heart shall be released unto the unsuspecting world.

To stop him, heroes will have to engage in a deadly race against Ghulan's own agents of evil, journeying through the stygian depths of the subterranean city of Il'drazza'kuul and to the horrific demi-plane known as The Sea of Endless Night. Ultimately, their quest will bring them to Hellstone Deep, an impenetrable fortress populated with Ghulan's Hellish minions. But within the Heart lie powers that even Ghulan cannot understand. Powers that, if released, could spell disaster for all. And darkness shall reign again…

 

[JoeGKushner]

The review below contains spoilers so GM's only please.

Hellstone Deep is a high level 3.5 adventure designed for 18th-20th level characters that takes them through three separate locations. How best to sum up Hellstone Deep? It's got a three things going for it.

The first thing is that it's not static and that it keeps the players moving. Players, once they learn what's happening, are on a deadline. This forces characters to act, a problem that high level characters sometimes have as they often go about gathering resources, information, allies, and other goodies that are typical of high level play.

This movement is also felt through the whole adventure. Creatures do not wait for the adventurers. They actively hunt them down, seeking their deaths. They prepare spells ahead of time when they know that the players are on the way. They prepare traps and take advantage of the terrain around them in order to inflict maximum pain on the characters. This ranges from throwing the characters into acid pits to using teleportation chambers to escape from the characters to leaving delayed blast fireballs behind them.

The second thing is customization. While there are new monsters and magic items included in the adventure, many of the adversaries here are customized versions of regular creatures. This ranges from the augmented beholders to fire giant with fiendish blood to the advanced iron golems that guard various passages in the lower levels.

I like customized creatures because they save me time, showcase how improvements can be made with standard monsters, and allows the GM to surprise the characters without having to reinvent the wheel. It also follows the pattern set down in the Monster Manual 3.5 where there is a normal version of the monster and a more powerful version for higher level play.

The third thing the adventure has is danger. Players are going to have to be at the top of their game to have any chance of survival. They're going to have to know the value not only of their own spells, especially in preparing to fight the big battles, but also in having lots of dispel magic scrolls about to take care of the enemies bluff spells. They're going to have to know when to retreat and when to use raise dead because I can almost guarantee that mages and rogues who get caught by just a few bad rounds of combat in some of these encounters, even at 20th level, will quickly wind up dead.

Now that the praise is out of the way, what is the adventure about? Well, long ago a dark god fought a war with a powerful weapon. God was defeated, weapon supposedly destroyed and now a fiendish fire giant seeks to augment his rank in Hell by reactivating the weapon. This requires a bit of work though and the players, while on an unrelated mission, come across this danger.

Once on the move, players will discover that not all is well in a city of mind flayers that's been conquered by the drow who have in turn been corrupted by the dire energies from the fiendish weapon. Once they finish there, they have to travel to a demi-plane in order to finish their business.

Along the way, the adventure makes good use of unusual terrain. In some locations, magic doesn't work. This allows lower powered creatures to take advantage of the terrain and strike the characters where it hurts. In other situations, it's the mere places they travel that are dangerous. For instances, if the players breech the gates around the Shadow Gate, they may find themselves cast into another plane or if they're not careful on the demi-plane called the Sea of Endless Knight, they'll discover that the ocean water is level draining.

Layout and art are about average in this product. It's a shame too as so many of the new creatures here could really use some great full page illustrations. The maps are workable but not up to the standards set by Green Ronin and Mystic Eye Games. The editing is fair and everything looked good on a first pass. At 104 pages for $19.99, Hellstone Deep is a little overpriced.

Hellstone Deep is the perfect way to get the party ready for epic level adventure and take up their mantle as warriors who've traveled across the planes and battled against ancient evils.

 

[Merova]

Hi all!

Good review, Joe!

It sounds like the writer put some serious thought into this mod, in terms of considered tactical challenge. A "moving" scenario feels so much more visceral and dramatic than a "static" one; I'm happy that the writer went with this more challenging route.

Monkey God has been putting out some fine stuff. I'm definitely going to pick this one up.

Again, thanks for writing.

---Merova

 

[cats_claw]

I bought this last week and have yet had the time to crack the cover. I plan on running it after the characters get through Demon Gods Fane and then a second small module to get them to 19th level or so.

With raise dead, do you anticipate that this module really can get them to raise 3-4 levels, assuming that they may get raised once and lose a level?

Great review. Thanks!

 

[Daezarkian]

Thanks, Joe, for the kind review. Glad you liked it -- I'm very proud of Hellstone Deep.

Merova -- I, too, enjoy moving scenarios and unusual combat arenas. There has been so much produced, that often the best way to make an adventure fresh for (often jaded) players is to present familiar elements in a new and exciting way. That was the intent with Hellstone Deep, and I can only hope that it pays off. I also enjoy a moving scenario to a static one: I find that the more flexible the scenario, the more fun will be had by players and DMs alike.

Cats_Claws -- Good question. XP wise, the adventure can easily take characters 3 or 4 levels, but unless they're using true resurrection that's bound to get reduced by a level or two. (Or more...)

Anyone please feel free to post more questions, comments or (ultimately) how this adventure plays out for over at www.monkeygodenterprises.com. I relish any and all comments you can provide.

Cheers!
Daezarkian
aka Steven Montano

 

[der_kluge]

reviewer bias: I am a freelance writer for Mystic Eye Games, but I have no affiliation with MonkeyGod Games. Likewise, Mystic Eye Games does not have any products that could be considered competing products to Hellstone Deep.

Warning: This review contains spoilers.

As a bit of trivia, it is a little known that fact that I, die_kluge, was the absolute first person on the face of planet earth to purchase Hellstone Deep. I did so at GenCon '03 before the dealer floor even opened. It had just come out, and with my signed copy in hand, I set out to use it as a basis (or, the culmination, if you will) for my entire campaign.

Hellstone Deep is a 104-page softbound module written by Steven Montano (Black Ice Well) that is suitable for a party of 4-6 players of 18th-20th level. According to David Hurd (Mr. Monkeygod himself), the playtesters kept getting annihilated, and what started out as 16th-18th level, ended up being 18th-20th level, and some of the encounters were modified accordingly. Furthermore, it's all 3.5 compliant, so the devils and other beasties presented are already taken into consideration with regards to combat CRs. As you know, many of these creatures were heavily modified from 3.0 to 3.5.

Hellstone Deep is set, like many of MonkeyGod's modules, in a place I like to call Generica. While there are names given to the locations, none of the cities or places described are so ingrained in any specific world so that it becomes difficult to place them into your own campaign setting. The gods and legends depicted in Hellstone Deep can easily be placed into any campaign setting seemlessly.

There are basically three parts to the module itself, broken out into three separate locations. The first location, the Temple of Iron Flames, is an introductory location that is used to define the tone of the adventure to the PCs. Here, the PCs learn that there is a demon that is hunting down a powerful artifact. The location is a fairly interesting, and could easily be used as a side adventure, or as a base of operations. This section is relatively short, and can easily be removed altogether if the DM has a different way of introducting the plot to his party.

The second part is the city of Il'Drazza'Kuul, a mind flayer city set deep within the bowels of the earth. As an interesting side note, MonkeyGod received permission from WoTC to utilize mind flayers and beholders in this module, even though they are not in the SRD. This second section is a much larger section, and filled with lots of potential for much player carnage. Here, the party learns that a long dormant link to something called the "chain of scars" is about to be reactivated. If this is accomplished, it will spell much doom for celestial-kind. Here, the players fight some wicked-nasty stuff, and hopefully find a way to make it to their third destination, Hellstone Deep itself.

The third part details Hellstone Deep - a demi-plane within the negative energy plane. Hellstone Deep is a bizarre, sort of upside-down dungeon where you start at the bottom and work your way up. The place is filled with all manner of trap and vile beasties, and culminates in not one, but two epic battles, the first with a half-fiend fire giant with fighter levels, and the second with nothing less than an evil fallen angel in the form of a half dragon Solar - a CR 25 creature, designed to ensure that even the most stalwart of 20th level parties is aptly challenged.

The book makes good use of dialogue and is never short on information. Most locations have "boxed text", which despite being overly prosy, provides good imagery and color for the locations. The disparate locations are all interesting, and unique, and can easily find a home in any DM's setting. Each location is qualified by an EL descriptor, so that the DM knows up front where the challenges are, and how difficult they might be. One feature that MonkeyGod used in this book that I really liked was the "Description and Background" and "Motivations and Traits" sections for all the major NPCs. These sections should be standard in every module, and provide a clear foundation to help the DM understand where the NPCs are coming from, and what their goals are. A "Quote" section is a nice touch here as well.

All the bad guys have full stat blocks in the back (in fact, nearly half the book is devoted to crunchy bits, stat blocks, and maps), and some are quite complex (as you can imagine any CR 20 character being). There are a number of new monsters, including Bloodscreamers (gargantuan aberration) and Hellish Rippers (medium monstrous humanoids), a couple of new monster templates (because hey, you can never truly have enough), a new spell (switchback, sort of a reverse dimension door), and some new magic items and artifacts. All the maps to all the locations are in the back, and while the maps aren't awesome enough to want to hang on your wall, they are clear and provide a sufficient level of understanding for the locations the party will find themselves in.

The art is nothing fancy, though there are several NPC pieces that are quite good. The layout is clear, and consistent. There are two sections where the ext is inexplicably missing (on pages 6 and 13). MonkeyGod has provided the missing text, and can be found on their official forums at Mortality.net.

Steven's writing here is clear, and at times, witty. This module isn't high on role-playing opportunities, or deep political intrigue. It's a bloodbath, and designed as such. The true strength behind Hellstone Deep is the fact that it can be so easily integrated into your own setting, and could easily be made the basis of a long running campaign, as I am currently doing.

If you're looking for a highly political, role-playing intensive module for your high level party, Hellstone Deep is probably not it. But, if you're looking for an adaptable, complex, challenging, high-level blood bath with unique locations, and a time-sensitive "save the world" plot, then you don't really need to look any further. From giant evil monkeys, to Erinyes Bards, to fallen half dragon solars. Hellstone Deep really does have it all.