Song of the Blade
Song of the Blade is a beginning adventure from Goodman Games for Monte Cook Presents: Iron Heroes*. For those who aren't familiar with it, Iron Heroes is a D&D variant. Basically it's D&D, but with different classes and a magic system. I actually don't have Iron Heroes, but from what I can tell, it seems to place an emphasis on physical combat and swashbuckling as opposed to magic. While it seems to have magic, it's very rare and completely different from the traditional D&D fire & forget system.
That said, there seems to be little that would keep this module from being used for D&D or just about any other d20 game. The main difference in the stats seems to be that in this, armor provides damage reduction, not an improved AC, the same basic tack that Conan and Spycraft (among others) take. While the classes are different, they can be quickly converted, or used as is, since the stat blocks provide most of the relevant info on abilities.
The Module Itself...
The module itself is also a departure from the typical D&D scenario. It's more dark fantasy, or really, almost a horror scenario. It starts off innocuously enough. The PCs are asked to investigate the origin of a mysterious artifact. It seems the local mayor of the town the PCs are in (Axenbough it's called) just acquired this mysterious hat from a woodsman, who says he found it in some ruins in the forest. Since the mayor is fond of strange hats, he wants them to investigate the site and see if it has any more. Presumably the PCs agree.
The place the woodsman found it in turns out to be an ancient ruined hillfort. It seems the area used to be inhabited by a race of really evil arachnids. So the PCs presumably explore this ruined fort and find more mysterious objects. This bit is pretty much just a dungeon crawl (and a relatively short one).
The second part (the module is divided into three parts) is where it starts to differ from the typical D&D type scenario. It deals with the revelation that there is an evil cult who worships these mysterious ancient hat wearers. They first must locate a mysterious NPCs with the improbable name of "Grandmother Hickory" (sounds like a coffee) and win her trust in a somewhat amusing encounter. Then they need to learn more about the cult and the mysterious race they worship.
The last part is basically the big showdown with the evil cult. In true action movie fashion, the bad guys have stolen an npc, and it's up to the PCs to rescue him. And of course, the showdown takes place in a fairly dangerous area.
It's actually sort of a two part showdown. They have to storm one stronghold (of sorts) then discover the real villain, and then go storm the real stronghold.
I really like the final showdown. If the players are smart, they should be able to handle it okay, but if they rush into it blindly, they will get killed. In a way it reminds me of how combat in Guild Wars (or perhaps any online RPG), where you have to sort of pull groups of critters away from each other, to take them on a few at a time. And beyond that, the major villains have a surprise up their sleeves (or should I say heads, though they don't know that), which is gruesome but good.
Since I don't own Iron Heroes, I can't vouch that the stats are correct. But the editor is apparently a staff reviewer for a certain site who happens to have a reputation for knowing d20 like , er, well, someone who knows d20 really really well, producing reviews that contain huge lists of stat mistakes. So any stat errors are likely printing errors.
Also, presumably an Iron Heroes standard thing, is listings of possible "stunts" that PCs can do in various combat locations. Swing off of rafters, jump on tables, that sort of thing. Again, I don't know how they work, but there's a large number of them listed, at least in the major combats.
Physically, it's a somewhat spartan looking book. They tried to mimic the design style of Malhavoc Press, which I personally never cared much for. Too much white space, it's like reading bird prints in the snow. But many seem to like it. The art is okay, some of it is a bit amateurish looking, but others are excellent.
Final Thoughts
It's a pretty good module. I liked how the author tried to avoid railroading the PCs. On the downside, I really thought it should have some details about the village it's set in, Axenbough. Surely the PCs will want to spend some time there, and so the DM will have to do quite a bit of work fleshing it out (which sort of defeats the purpose of a module). Similarly, if the PCs get to know the townies, there should be a small chance of them realizing that perhaps there is a sinister cult amongst them. Especially since around 3% or so of the town seems to be a member.
Of course, conversely, by not including any information about the town itself, the adventure itself is longer. Just a guesstimate, but I would say it would take about 6 game sessions of 3-4 hours each to play. (about 1 1/2 for the first part, 2 1/2 for the 2nd, 2 for the third), which is about on par with a 96 page module. On the other hand, once the module is run, it's pretty much no further use, unlike a module with a developed town.
So this is perhaps a preference issue. I fall on the side of having a fully developed (or at least somewhat developed) town.
Also, some of the names are somewhat out of places. I mean, you have 2 NPCs named Jakkel and Hyid. Then there is the name of one NPC, "Sammael", which pretty much is a dead give away that he is notable. In this day and age you can pretty much find an unlimited number of "fantasy" names either on the web or from free programs. Resorting to puns and a major, major, major bad guy from Judeo-Christian theology (or worse yet, a Robert Jordan series) is just silly.
While I joked a bit about them, I did like the mysterious ancient race. They remind me a lot of the critters from the excellent "Quatermass and the Pit", only in this case they are spider like, not preying mantis like. Some might find spiders a bit over done in the d20 fantasy arena, but this provides a common theme to tie in all those many spider monsters.
Iron Heroes is designed for action, and Song of the Blade delivers plenty of it. But perhaps at the expense of role-playing. So I give it a B+. It's almost good enough to round up to a 5, but not quite.
* It's actually apparently by Mike Mearls, not Monte Cook, but presumably Monte Cook's name on a product sells better than Mr. Mearls. Which really shouldn't be the case, as Mr. Mearls is generally considered to be one of the top d20 designers around, but I guess it's like how Quentin Tarentino gets his name on movies from Asia he had nothing to do with. At least Mr. Mearls doesn't have to direct Jean-Claude Van Damme movies (or write RPGs based on them).
