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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Radiating Gnome" data-source="post: 5206157" data-attributes="member: 150">This is the report on The Last Vestige (LV), by Pour, and Trapped in a Dead God's Hand (DGH) by MatthewJHansonI'm intrigued that the set of ingredients provided sent both contestants off to epic level -- I'm not sure which ingredient(s) made that the "natural" place to land for this match -- and maybe it's just a coincidence. It's another close match, so lets get down to brass tacks. Ingredients.  Mercury Dragon.  In LV, we have Silikoras, an information source the PCs need to consult to find the final location of their target.  I find that the presence of Silikoras is interesting -- the addiction-paupered dragon being bled for information and whose blood is used to create drugs for others.  In DGH, the mercury dragon appears in a couple of different ways -- the non-stop pleasure ship, the actual captain of the ship.  The idea of a sort of astral cruise ship that never even slows down for the embarkation and debarkation of passengers -- a ship that rockets around at breakneck speeds, presumably faster than most other craft out there in the planes . . .  it feels to me very much like a Terry Pratchet idea -- amusing and fun on the surface, and hard to imagine really working out in practice.  There ought to be plenty of other ways to board a speeding ship (teleportation circle, perhaps), especially at this level, so that this bit of tomfoolery is just an exercise in the absurd.  And, there's nothing wrong with the absurd, or the comic absurd in an adventure, but once you've set that tone, it creates an expectation for the rest of the adventure to support that tone.  I'm pretty much on the fence about which version of the dragon I like better . . . I think that the usage in DGH is riskier, but neither seems to be stronger than the other taken as an isolated element, so we'll call this one a draw. Crystal SepulcherIn LV, the Crystal Sepulcher the CS holds the last vestige of a dead god who has been expunged from creation -- at least nearly so. The sepulcher is the final setting of the adventure, a sort of crystal island that has grown out of the vessel containing the shred of divinity. In DG, the sepulcher is the vessel which contained the gift of prophecy stolen by Adahn, and then returned at the end of the adventure.  In the actual play of the adventure, the PCs will really only encounter it at the very end, and don't directly interact with it -- they find themselves in the bare stone room with the CS, Adahn tells them the story, then releases the gift from his own forehead and it goes back into the CS.  So, the PCs get to see it, and that's about it.  I think the more extensive, involved use in LV wins this point. Corrupt ProphetDGH gives us Adahn, the corrupt prophet the PCs discover on the Quicksilver Dragon.  He's an interesting NPC, but his role as "prophet" is a bit thin in the adventure.  In a more general sense he's making his living as a sort of side-show mentalist, but prophets see the future, and most of what Adahn does is read the past or present ("Hermes . . . . seeks your employment", etc.)In LV, the "corrupt prophet" is more of a command than a person -- the PCs find it necessary to corrupt the virgin bride. The virgin bride, however, never seems to play a role as prophet -- she's a religious leader, but again, there's no vision of the future there for her.  It's an interesting challenge to make her the focus of two such nearly-polar ingredients (abstinence and corrupt prophet), but I feel like we fall short of seeing her as an actual prophet.  So, point for DGH.Abstinence. As I've already noted, the Virgin Bride is the embodiment of abstinence in LV.  I find her very confusing.  I mean, I totally get the role she plays in the adventure -- priestess of the dead god trying to revive it.  But I don't think the writeup of the adventure quite explains how her virginity serves the dead god.  I mean . . . reading it over, I think there are a few dots that were not connected.  Here's what we know about the virgin bride:1. The vestige's prophet destined to one day bare He Who Is Reborn.2. The deva known only as the Virgin Bride, believing herself a reincarnation of one of his slain angels, began a faith around the vestige. 3. The Virgin Bride looks into [the vestige] often, talks with it, draws strength and gives strength to it.4. The prophet can be seduced....The faith will be rattled enough, but through further meddling may collapse entirely.I mean . . . if you replace the name of the NPC "Virgin Bride" with something else -- say "Pirate Cat", nothing changes.  While the recap declares that her virginity is important, I'm not seeing that written into the actual adventure -- I don't see where it becomes important for her role as vessel for the reborn god or anything like that.  The rest of the role of abstinence in the adventure, as detailed in the recap, is actually the absence of abstinence -- and I don't think you get credit on iron chef for using cinnamon by pointing out all of the dishes where you didn't use cinnamon.  I might be dense, or missing something, but my guess is that this detail was either something that didn't get fleshed out, or it's something that I'm supposed to have inferred from the name "Virgin Bride" and the way it echoes Mary & the Virgin Birth, etc.  In DGH, abstinence shows up in, according to the recap, two places -- the Ghouls, and Lili.  Lili plays no role in the adventure, she's just color, and that's about as thin as thin can get.  The Ghoul's abstinence isn't much better -- it's a fun detail, though, and what it does do is sustain the absurd, Terry Pratchett tone of the adventure -- I mean, come on, Ghouls that crave brains they mussn't eat, and that can't say the word lest they lose control?  In the overall plot of the adventure, it's not an important detail, but it certainly sustains the mood.  Point to DGH.  Loaded DiceIn DGH, Adahn uses loaded dice to make sure he wins at his parlor game.  In LV, loaded dice are given to the party by the devil Barbatos to win an audience with Miminix.  I'm fascinated by this ingredient in these two entries, because if there were any ingredient that I would have expected to tie this adventure into a heroic tier, low-level setting, it would be something as mundane and pedestrian as loaded dice.  It's not surprising, then, that in these two epic level adventures the use is minimal, just a nod to get the ingredient into the adventure.  Of the two uses, I prefer the one in DGH, because the use of loaded dice to simulate the divine gift of prophecy, but it's a pretty thin margin.  Slight advantage to DGH on this one. Ebon Fly. I'm really drawn to the use of the Ebon flies in Last Vestige -- it's a relatively small detail, using the flies in the demoweb pits to create a distraction to draw the spiders and other web-tending creatures away . . . it's a cool idea, but I wonder about it in actual play.  I mean . . . . you would want the players to come up with this idea -- it would be far less satisfying to hand it to them. But if you take a magic item like the ebon fly -- even if it's not one of CNN's favorite magic items -- and give it to the PCs, I think it's pretty rare that they're going to come up with a plan that involves tossing it away as a decoy if they can avoid it.  In DGH, the Ebon flies are feeding on the dead god, and they herald the arrival of the ship in the clutches of the dead god's hand.  They're an opponent the PCs face.  I found this application of the ingredient a bit flat -- yeah, it makes sense; but it's not all that inventive.  The "secondary" application of the ingredient, the drow barfly, isn't just thin, it's anorexic.  It's one advantage, if it has one, is that it also feeds the absurd tone of the adventure, but it's still pretty weak, and plays no real role.  Garnish.  In the end, I'm going to give this ingredient to LV, but I think I'm already on the trail of some problems I'm going to have when I get to playability.  Playability. In DGH, the players are invited to board the ship, go through the skill challenge to board, goof off on the ship for a while, then take on the "real" adventure when the ship is caught by the dead god and they need to help free it. I'm not totally excited that the final act -- releasing the stolen gift of prophecy -- is something the PCs just get to watch, they're not doing it, but otherwise it's a nice, fairly compact adventure in an epic setting.  In LV, the scope of the adventure is much grander, involving extended travel through the planes of hell, etc.  The players need to visit the infernal carnival, travel the demonweb pits, and then finally infiltrate Gloryda, seduce the prophet, and overcome the vestige.  This is an interesting adventure, it seems, in that most of the truly important encounters in the adventure are skill challenges rather than combat encounters.  The PCs fight incidental battles on the way down into hell towards Gloryda, but this has the potential to be a very different sort of adventure.  The final act, for example has the PCs seduce the Virgin Bride, use that seduction to break down the faith that has grown up around the vestige, and then face the vestige itself in a final skill challenge.  The writeup says "encounter/skill challenge" -- did that mean combat encounter/skill challenge?"  If so, the writeup doesn't let us know what the vestige is in concrete terms -- as far as I can tell it's a fragment of divine energy -- is that something the party can fight?  In other areas, like the demonweb pits, we get some information about the foes (exarch of Lolth, etc), but in this case, the vestige isn't clear to me.  I really like encounters that combine combat and skill challenges, and I'm a huge fan of skill challenges, so I feel like I *should* like LV's ideas better. But over and over again the adventure creates situations where the PCs need to come up with a solution to a problem that is fairly well scripted, but it pretends that it isn't.  Take, for example, the problem with the Virgin Bride.  The PCs need to seduce her -- but is that something they're going to come up with on their own?  And how many PCs are going to be involved in the effort to seduce the prophet?  Is that a skill challenge that 5 PCs are really going to be engaged with? How many parties are going to come up with that solution?  The adventure suggests other ideas, sure . . . but in the artifical environment of this contest the adventure NEEDS the PCs to seduce her so that she can be corrupted.  None of this makes the adventure unplayable, but it's . . . wobbly. Anyway, I find the more concise, straightforward DGH much more playable.  Creativity.I'll be honest, I'm not a huge Pratchett fan.  Douglas Adams is fun to a point, but he wears on me.  The sort of Absurd humor thing plays itself out pretty quickly if it doesn't walk a pretty thin line.  So, when I read things like "Hermes Hyperion...." I roll my eyes a little.  On the inside.  At the same time, I can respect the effort it takes to settle on that sort of tone in an adventure like this and try to carry it off all the way through.  And I think DGH *almost* gets there.  The biggest problem?  Adahn and the dead god.  They don't feel like they belong in the same universe as an elf named Dusseldwarf, a Drow Barfly, and Ghouls-That-May-Not-Say-Brains.  Sure, there's an element of the absurd to Adahn.  He is a prophet who tells the past, not the future . . . but those elements never really seem to play to the same audience that the other flavorful elements of the adventure play to.  Meanwhile, there's Last Vestige.  I'm not seeing anything "wrong" here . . . the PCs get hired by a devil, visit the circus, travel through hell, go to the crystal island, seduce an angel and defeat a fragment of a god . . . . all good pieces. And while there's a sequence, the final package doesn't seem to have the same feeling of being a single unified package that DGH does.  So, even with it's flaws, I think I prefer DGH for creativity, too.  Final Verdict:When all is said and done, while I wasn't totally bullish on either entry -- and while both were totally credible offerings -- I think that it's clear that Trapped in a Dead God's Hand is the stronger of the two entries on all three counts -- a slight edge on ingredients, an advantage on playability, and another slight edge on creativity.  So, MatthewJHanson Advances.</blockquote>

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