Horror of Penance

[Ghostwind]

The Forge is known as a place of extremes—a place where even the most mundane sensation evokes a new impression into one’s psyche. While rarely spoken of, fear is no less heightened on the Forge, and to experience this sensation while within one of the Seven Domains is to invite mind-freezing and soul-searing terror into one’s being.

Horrors of Penance delves into and captures this dread in the form of two chilling tales of impenetrable darkness that feature bizarre murders, spine-riveting suspense, ancient

curses gone awry, hordes of the living dead, horrific torture, and much, much more! If your characters (or players) have a specific fear, chances are Horrors of Penance will not only bring it screaming to the surface of their souls, but also thrust it—raw and bloody—into their faces.

Horrors of Penance, penned by the authors of the introductory Oathbound® adventure, Dark Welcomes, contains two complete adventures: Craving Darkness, for 10th level characters; and Totem, for 17th level heroes. Further, Horrors of Penance provides no less than thirteen new ideas for horror-themed adventures or campaigns that are detailed for the Oathbound Campaign Setting, but could easily be adapted for any campaign!

 

[Crothian]

Horrors of Penance

Horrors of Penance is a pair of adventures for Bastion’s Oathbound setting. The first adventure is for tenth level characters and the second adventure is for seventeenth level adventures. The adventures are written for 3.0 but with a little elbow grease the conversation to 3.5 should not be too difficult. Horrors of Penance is a free pdf written by Brannon Hollingsworth and Ken Marable both of whom worked on the adventures found in the Oathbound setting Book. The adventure comes in a 2.7 meg zip file that has three files inside it. It contains two versions of the adventure. One is designed for printing and the other one is not. The third file is the cover of the adventure. All three of the smaller files are about a megabyte in size.

Horrors of Penance is two well thought out adventures. Both are very creative and off a few interesting twists for the players and dungeon master to enjoy. Neither adventure is very long as the whole pdf is only fifty pages. At the end of the file there are also thirteen adventure ideas that can easily be expanded upon. The cover art by Jesse Mohn features a picture of a skeleton and demon facing opposite directions. He also did the interior art which there is only a few pieces of. Each piece is nice and fits the adventure well; it is just a light product with art. Jeremy Simmons, the Cartographer, does a nice work with the maps. The maps in the first adventure are very important as I will make clear below after the spoiler warning. The layout on this is very well done, easy to read, and good on the eyes. There are however no bookmarks on this product. Books allow for sections in a pdf to be found with ease and when they are absent they are missed.

This and everything below gets into the adventures and providing some detail on them. Spoilers will be included. The first adventure is called craving darkness. While it is set in Oathbound I found that this is a great idea and can easily be used in most other settings with only a few minor changes. This adventure is written for tenth level characters but with a little adjusting it should be fairly easy to use it for levels a few below or a few higher. The adventure has a rich history of evil and powerful artifacts; however the party will just stumble on the adventure. It might make the players a little more interested in the adventure if they know a little of the back story and are seeking out some of the mysteries surrounding it.

The real interesting part of the adventure is it takes place in a mansion that is permanently under darkness. There is nothing short of some major magic that the players do not have access to that will get rid of it. The mansion is also heavily trapped. Most encounters deal with the party exploring through darkness and running afoul of these traps. Exploration of the building will be slow, but all the rooms are described as if the players are blind. That makes the adventure very different and interesting.

The second adventure is called Totem and it is designed for seventeenth level characters. I think the adventure has a great set up and might be better for characters of lower levels. But if one does that many of the encounters will need to be scaled back. The adventure takes place after a mysterious death of one of the player’s friends. Or they could be strangers investigating the death, but I also prefer to give the player a relationship with the adventure’s NPCs. In any event more people start dieing mysteriously and the only thing they have in common besides being dead is a visit from Aunt Anelie. Anelie is an older woman who offers comfort from people experiencing the loss of a loved one. She creates these nice little totems that take away the grief and the pain people feel. Little does she know that in actuality, she’s helping summon in a greater devil. So, the party has to either stop the devil from appearing or defeat it after it appears.

Both these adventures I feel can easily be used without the Oathbound setting. They are well thought out adventures that area little bit more then the typical ones people are used to seeing. Neither adventure is particularly long, but each is easily extendible by a dungeon master that is willing to put in the work. As the adventures are free there really is no reason to not at get these.