Simon Collins
Explorer
Beware! This review contains major spoilers.
This is the sixth booster adventure by AEG. It is designed for three to five characters of level 4-6. It costs $2.49
Production and Presentation: This module is 16 pages but each page is only ½ the width of an A4 page. The front (soft)cover features poor colour artwork, the back cover features an introduction for the players to the adventure. There is no internal artwork, though the central pages contain a basic map of the fortress tomb of Tirna’gael, sufficient to run the adventure (like all previous AEG maps, scale-less). The final page and the inside back cover contains OGL bumpf. The inside front cover contains advertising.
The Story: A famous warlord who died 600 years ago was entombed by a group of paladins after they discovered he was possessed by an incorporeal evil spirit that could move from body to body (a new monster, known as a Nescent). The paladins kept his possession a secret and the warlord continued to be revered after his death. The tomb, hung over a lava pit, is protected by fire mephits and some ingenious but ancient traps. The ghost of the tomb’s architect still haunts the tomb and a dretch searches for the ring he exchanged with the nescent over half a millennium before. The dretch has broken the seals on the tomb and the PCs are sent to investigate the disturbance. The tomb’s ghost seeks to help the PCs get rid of the nescent once and for all using a dagger of petrification.
The High Points: The NPCs have some interesting motivations and there are opportunities for amending the module to introduce the nescent as an ongoing villain. I liked the idea of some of the traps failing due to disrepair, though this is not a new idea. There are options given for some roleplaying though the module is very trap-orientated. The idea of the tomb hanging over a lava pit with fire mephitis protecting was good.
The Low Points: A couple of the traps are seriously deadly – though each has a get-out clause in them, an unlucky roll or two could spell an ignominious death for a beloved PC. There again seemed to be a wealth of treasure, and very powerful. I’m not a great fan of a welter of magical items strewn about a dungeon – whilst the NPCs seem to be well thought out, the treasure placement seemed random and overdone.
Conclusion: I was very tempted to give this a Good rating because of the detailed (for the page count) NPCs and an interesting setting, but it didn’t quite make it due to the plethora of traps and treasures that hinted at another random dungeon design.
This is the sixth booster adventure by AEG. It is designed for three to five characters of level 4-6. It costs $2.49
Production and Presentation: This module is 16 pages but each page is only ½ the width of an A4 page. The front (soft)cover features poor colour artwork, the back cover features an introduction for the players to the adventure. There is no internal artwork, though the central pages contain a basic map of the fortress tomb of Tirna’gael, sufficient to run the adventure (like all previous AEG maps, scale-less). The final page and the inside back cover contains OGL bumpf. The inside front cover contains advertising.
The Story: A famous warlord who died 600 years ago was entombed by a group of paladins after they discovered he was possessed by an incorporeal evil spirit that could move from body to body (a new monster, known as a Nescent). The paladins kept his possession a secret and the warlord continued to be revered after his death. The tomb, hung over a lava pit, is protected by fire mephits and some ingenious but ancient traps. The ghost of the tomb’s architect still haunts the tomb and a dretch searches for the ring he exchanged with the nescent over half a millennium before. The dretch has broken the seals on the tomb and the PCs are sent to investigate the disturbance. The tomb’s ghost seeks to help the PCs get rid of the nescent once and for all using a dagger of petrification.
The High Points: The NPCs have some interesting motivations and there are opportunities for amending the module to introduce the nescent as an ongoing villain. I liked the idea of some of the traps failing due to disrepair, though this is not a new idea. There are options given for some roleplaying though the module is very trap-orientated. The idea of the tomb hanging over a lava pit with fire mephitis protecting was good.
The Low Points: A couple of the traps are seriously deadly – though each has a get-out clause in them, an unlucky roll or two could spell an ignominious death for a beloved PC. There again seemed to be a wealth of treasure, and very powerful. I’m not a great fan of a welter of magical items strewn about a dungeon – whilst the NPCs seem to be well thought out, the treasure placement seemed random and overdone.
Conclusion: I was very tempted to give this a Good rating because of the detailed (for the page count) NPCs and an interesting setting, but it didn’t quite make it due to the plethora of traps and treasures that hinted at another random dungeon design.
