Frostmarrow
First Post
Beware spoilers ahead:
I just finished reading Queen of Lies by Monte Cook. This module is published under the Sword and Sorcery banner. It's black and white, 48 pages and staple bound.
First of all I like to say that this module is perfect on all techical areas. Monte Cook sure knows his trade. It features a couple of new magical items and a new monster. There are no spelling mistakes or typeos whatsoever (that I could spot).
The Queen of Lies is pretty straight forward and simplistic in it's design. The author adds a few interesting tidbits about dark elven society and the players will learn first hand how cruel and devious the dark elves are. The adventure starts off with a murder mystery but the culprits are easy identified with the help of a few divinations or gather information legwork. The victims are old friends of the characters. Once the players realise that dark elves are behind the murders the players are assumed to want to track down the dark elves to get revenge and reclaim some holy artefacts. The characters trek to the underworld and soon mayhem ensues.
There is not much room for role-playing but if you enjoy tactical combat then you will find that this module provides ample opportunity to hack and slash. One interesting aspect of the module is that the author encourages the player's to get henchmen. A party of four characters can be accompanied of as many as 42 henchmen not counting cohorts and followers. The henchmen makes for some pretty interesting battles where the characters and their minions clash with the numerous forces of the dark elves. The henchmen also serves as bring-your-own-role-playing since the dark elves show very little interest in the adventurers.
The author writes in a way that everyone can understand. All descriptions are short and to the point. The author uses the iceberg-techinque of E Hemingway. If a dark elf, for example, hide objects in a body cavity, the author writes just that and nothing more. This is nice because it allows for more actual material to be crammed into the book. However, I find that the whole module lacks poetry. There are no emotions involved and it makes me wonder why I (or the players) should care at all. A tortured victim is used only to communicate a few secrets before you can forget all about him.
The art in this module is very good. All dark elves are handsome and especially the female ones look extremely pretty. This might detract from the image of dark elves being cruel and evil. The maps are simple and easy to comprehend.
All in all it's a good module for those who likes to get in and fight it out but if you want to add role-playing to your campaign I wouldn't recommend it. The author wants the DM to kill off a number of developed NPCs in order to ignite the right kind of vengeful fury in the characters. The trade off is not worth it though. Developed NPCs are far more valuable than that.
I just finished reading Queen of Lies by Monte Cook. This module is published under the Sword and Sorcery banner. It's black and white, 48 pages and staple bound.
First of all I like to say that this module is perfect on all techical areas. Monte Cook sure knows his trade. It features a couple of new magical items and a new monster. There are no spelling mistakes or typeos whatsoever (that I could spot).
The Queen of Lies is pretty straight forward and simplistic in it's design. The author adds a few interesting tidbits about dark elven society and the players will learn first hand how cruel and devious the dark elves are. The adventure starts off with a murder mystery but the culprits are easy identified with the help of a few divinations or gather information legwork. The victims are old friends of the characters. Once the players realise that dark elves are behind the murders the players are assumed to want to track down the dark elves to get revenge and reclaim some holy artefacts. The characters trek to the underworld and soon mayhem ensues.
There is not much room for role-playing but if you enjoy tactical combat then you will find that this module provides ample opportunity to hack and slash. One interesting aspect of the module is that the author encourages the player's to get henchmen. A party of four characters can be accompanied of as many as 42 henchmen not counting cohorts and followers. The henchmen makes for some pretty interesting battles where the characters and their minions clash with the numerous forces of the dark elves. The henchmen also serves as bring-your-own-role-playing since the dark elves show very little interest in the adventurers.
The author writes in a way that everyone can understand. All descriptions are short and to the point. The author uses the iceberg-techinque of E Hemingway. If a dark elf, for example, hide objects in a body cavity, the author writes just that and nothing more. This is nice because it allows for more actual material to be crammed into the book. However, I find that the whole module lacks poetry. There are no emotions involved and it makes me wonder why I (or the players) should care at all. A tortured victim is used only to communicate a few secrets before you can forget all about him.
The art in this module is very good. All dark elves are handsome and especially the female ones look extremely pretty. This might detract from the image of dark elves being cruel and evil. The maps are simple and easy to comprehend.
All in all it's a good module for those who likes to get in and fight it out but if you want to add role-playing to your campaign I wouldn't recommend it. The author wants the DM to kill off a number of developed NPCs in order to ignite the right kind of vengeful fury in the characters. The trade off is not worth it though. Developed NPCs are far more valuable than that.
Actually that's just a nice way of saying "I haven't read the module but don't trust the reviewer".
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