Innanas Kiss

[Prest0]

Over 5,000 years ago, the Sumerians believed their gods came to the Earth and took up residence. Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, and Persians worshipped these early gods and goddesses. Then, suddenly, the religion of the Sumerians died. This blood-soaked land, conquered by countless invaders has changed rulers many times, but the legends of the Sumerian myths remained to haunt the inhabitants of this land. Warfare and death are their fate, a never-ending cycle of terror and horror, from one regime to the next. But now the Americans have arrived… and things will change. One way or the other, things will change.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Innanas Kiss
Written by Ed Wetterman

This is a one-shot modern adventure module released by 12 to Midnight and is available in PDF. This is a comp copy and was not playtested.

Overview: Right up front this book tells you what it is and what it is not - it is a rough and tumble one night or tournament type of adventure meant to
be deadly. Players are all US military fighting in Iraq. Innanas Kiss (IK) is a fantastic module with above par writing. The writing, coupled with a
vivid imagination and some great use of historical background delivers a one-two combination that had me ready to Google the authors name for other
supplements.

Layout & Design: IK comes with both a printer and screen version. I read the printed version and I am poorer for it after looking at the screen version
with all the great sidebars. There is a good TOC that is hyperlinked. The 'art' consists of various photos of the US military in action - which would
have been rather dull if not for the colorful captions. The maps are functional B&W and they are clean.

Adventure Synopsis: Players begin a routine hunt for Saddam loyalists but quickly end up in the unenviable position of fighting a Sumerian Goddess and
her cronies. The adventure is linear - going from point A to point B with very little in-between. Normally, this is a down point however; the module
has a stated goal of providing a rip-roaring tournament style adventure so it works very well. The opponents - monsters are unusual but well placed
historical legends mixed in with a few alien creeps (scary ain't it).

What makes this module stand out? That is simple - Eds writing is superior, his imagery and descriptions are detailed but don't drag, and his humor is
evident in many of the side bars. The final thing is the creep factor. This module is full of creepy stuff and it is pulled off well in writing and I
think it would translate well on the tabletop.

Downsides: The writing and editing are great but there are some gaffs at the end of the book. There are 2-3 cut and paste errors in some of the NPC
abilities and there are some formatting errors in the stat blocks. Those are trivial in the scope of the adventure.

Overview: The module was designed for a niche type of game and succeeds admirably in it goal. The linear style and one shot nature might not appeal
to everyone so be warned before purchase, but this is a great module to have laying around for days when the normal game cannot be played or when key
characters are missing. I printed the module off and stuck it in my Dark Champions folder with every intention of running this for my Hero group some
day and that is about the best praise one can give a module.

Eosin

 

[Wystan]

Innana's Kiss

Innana’s Kiss
TWL-0010
12 to Midnight
51 Pages

(I was given a reviewers copy from the Review Project, and this will contain spoilers for the module)

I will try to go through this and rate the various sections, but let me start with the following paragraph:

This was a very hard module to review. It is based on a specific period in recent history and was dated by the time I got to read it. This module is based on D20 modern rules and was designed to be played as a one shot. This shows in the mind-set of the module, there are numerous areas to kill the players and also areas to subvert the players. I felt that the module was a bit more railroad than needed and made some of the actions of the players moot.
On to the review:

1. Art:
All art in the module are real Photos of soldiers and Artifacts involved in the module. No pictures of the new creatures and aliens involved. These would have added significantly to the players experience if the GM/DM could look at them and say, “This is what you see in front of you”. The maps included are nice for the GM/DM, but they could have made good use of player maps and satellite type photos for game setup. Score: 3

2. Story:
The story is based on the heroes/players trying to find a Weapon of Mass Destruction in post-Sadaam Iraq. This would not be too bad, but may cause some rifts in a game group that holds opposing beliefs on our place in the Middle East. It seems like it is designed for the players to lose, as the ending they get if they do win is unsatisfactory and does not allow for the possibility that the characters do not decide to run for it. I feel that there are a lot of areas where it is assumed that the players will do a certain thing and there is no mention of what to do in an opposite situation. The story reads like a book where the actors/players/characters must all know their roles before we start. Also the players will most likely go in expecting a regulation D20 Modern type game and suddenly have aliens and such thrust at them… Score: 2

3. New Monsters and Such:
Original is not a word that I will use. In reading the monsters/aliens I felt like I was reading a who’s who of alien movies. We have the Flesh Shifter, which is described as looking like grays and acting like reverse ‘Aliens’. They burrow into you using acid and take you over. Then we have the Shadow Hunter, this little monster is not really described, but he does tend to use armor that bends the light around him and makes him hard to see… hmmm predator much? The priest kings of Ur and also Innana herself make me think of the Goa’uld… Evil aliens masquerading as humans… They also describe a room where the tubes hold aliens, the description states to include a standard Gray and an ET alien and ‘a large humanoid covered in hair’. So we have the Asgard, ET and Chewbacca? Score: 2.5

4. Characters:
I cannot comment on the characters as I do not play D20 modern, but a quick glance at them showed me that they appeared slightly unbalanced, there are seven 7th level characters, a 5th level character and a 6th level character. Some of the characters do not possess side arms? Gear wise they have ‘Very Little’. 2 clips for a Semi Auto Rifle on a mission seems under armed to me. 1 reload for a few of the characters seems even less. The Lt gets a grand total of +13 in bonuses from his stats, the rest range between 5-9 with 8 being the most common. This seems like there will be one powerhouse character (no stat below 12 – Str and the rest 14 and above) and one weakling (15,10,16,10,10,10). Score: 3

5. Overall:
I liked the premise itself, saw that it can cause problems but looks well researched. I would not be able to run this as is with Stargate SG1 or with Spycraft 2.0 due to the above areas, but I can see it being used to design a good plot for an ongoing campaign. I also could not bring myself to play this as written due to the lethality.
Score: 2.65 (3)