Shadow of the Exile

[Morrus]

I am currently running The Longest Night, the first adventure in this trilogy, and was therefore eager to see what the authors had in store for the second installment. Please bear this in mind when you read my review - remember that I want to like this book.

Shadow of the Exile is the second adventure in the Witchfire Trilogy by Privateer Press. The trilogy is set in the Iron Kingdoms setting, a dark fantasy setting with a healthy injection of steampunk. As yet, there is no sourcebook on the Iron Kingdoms, but the adventures produced by Privateer Press have a reasonable amount of information about the world in them, easily enough to run the adventure. There is also an Iron Kingdoms website with further information and maps, and Privateer assure us that the IK sourcebook will be out later this year, along with their monster book, the Monsternomicom.

Right then. The first big piece of news is something I've been dying to tell people for weeks, but I promised that I would keep my mouth shut. However, Privateer have now officially announced that, like The Longest Night, this adventure kind of ended up a little bigger than previously planned. So, like it's predecessor, it has been expanded to 64 pages - for exactly the same price. I like that.

I'll try not to give too much of the plot away here. Shadow of the Exile continues where The Longest Night left off. Astute readers who are familiar with the previous adventure may well guess from the title as to part of the plot of this book (and, in my estimation, the real plot behind the entire trilogy - although I'll have to wait for Part III to find out if I'm right), although there is far more to the adventure than that.

The cover art is superb - even better than on the first book, and the interior art is of a similar high quality. Brian Snoddy and Matt Wilson have outdone themselves. You can download a wallpaper of the cover at Privateer's website.

We begin the book wih a 6 page introduction to the Iron Kingdoms. This is not the same information as was found at the beginning of The Longest Night - here we have information of the birth of the kingdoms, details about the various nations/kingdoms (Cygnar, Ord, Llael, Menoth, Khador), lands beyond the Iron Kingdoms - Rhul, the land of the Dwarves; Ios, the home of the Elves; The Kingdom of Cryx, ruled by the oldest dragon in the world; and the Bloodstone Marches, believed to be empty but really home to an as yet unknown race.

I now jump to the back of the book - the appendices. I'll deal with these before diving into the adventure itself. First we have 13 monsters - some of these are new, others come from The Longest Night. Most are the inhabitants of the swampy lands outside the City of Corvis (Razorbats, Cane Leeches, Swamp Gobbers, Gatormen, and so on). Others, like the Clockwork Priest and the spherical mechanical Servitors of Cyriss are classic examples of the steampunk elements prevalent throughout the Iron Kingdoms setting. We then have a few pages of NPCs, each with a couple of paragraphs of background and full stats (by the way - if you run this adventure, try and make Julian Helstrom talk and sound like Russell Crowe in Gladiator - it works, trust me).

Appendix C deals with firearms. One and a half pages of rules dealing with pistols, rifles and small cannon, along with the relevant skills needed to operate such devices. The vague rules in The Longest Night are clarified and expanded upon; for those of you who really need to know, the skill you are looking for is called Craft (small arms). Half a page of information on ammunition, it's alchemical construction, and its cost and availability. The firearms rules have also been released by Privateer Press as a free pdf download which can be found here at EN World on the Downloads Page.

Well, that's the peripheral stuff all dealt with. Now for the true meat of this product - the adventure itself. Privateer claim that this adventure is even better than it's predecessor. While this is not a review, per se, I do intend to test the validity of that claim!

Please be aware - spoilers follow. If you are a player, stop reading now - this is for your DM's eyes. After all, he's the one who'll probably end up paying for the thing! I will try, nevertheless, to keep spoilers to a minumum.

At the end of The Longest Night, Alexia attacked Corvis with an army of undead. The PCs managed (presumably!) to head off this attack, but Alexia escaped with the blade Witchfire. Father Dumas learns of her destination and asks the PCs to try and catch her and, if possible, bring her home safely. Alexia's destination is a mythical temple, that of the Clockwork Goddess (cue some interesting monsters).

The first Act deals with the PCs' journey to the temple. This includes their investigations into the actual location of said temple, the trip by steamship to get there and various encounters en route. Each encounter has a title, a timing indicator (e.g. any time the boat is stopped for the night, any time after the swampie village etc.) and it's purpose (to spill some blood, to provide an obstacle or to provide some vital information). The PCs are largely led by the nose here, but the encounters are so varied and interesting that it's hard to find fault with them.

The second Act deals with the temple itself - an enormous mechanical contraption with mechanical guardians (the Servitors of Cyriss are great!), moving parts and weird machines. This is, essentially, a dungeon crawl with a climactic encounter with Alexia at the end. It is at this point that the PCs finally get their hands on the Witchfire blade. The blade itself is a very powerful, evil artifact, and is not intended to be actually used by the PCs. In fact, there are some rather unpleasant consequences for those that try to wield it.

The third Act returns the PCs to Corvis. Corvis, in their absence, has fallen to an enemy from the past. Those who know something of the Iron Kingdons' background may be able to guess who. Father Dumas has been taken prisoner, and Captain 'Russell Crowe' Helstrom assists them in a jailbreak. The PCs need to avoid watchmen, Inquisitors (there - I gave it away!) and somehow free their ally and hide him from the authorities. Of course, you can guess what evil artifact the authorities are looking for...

And here the adventure ends. We are left at something of a cliffhanger, waiting to see what happens in Part III of the Witchfire Trilogy. Is it better than he first part? Hmmm...I'll go with a reserved 'yes' bearing in mind that I have not yet finished running Part I, let alone this module. And yes, I kind of messed up on the 'no spoilers' aspect of this review, although I left out some very important details.

Note: various materials for this adventure can be downloaded from the can be found here at EN World on the Downloads Page, including the firearms rules, ship deck plans for the steamboat and the player handouts.

 

[Tuerny]

Shadow of the Exile, written by Matt Staroscik, is the second module in Privateer Press's Witchfire Trilogy. It is a site-based adventure designed for characters of level three to five. It is set in and around the city of Corvis in the Iron Kingdoms setting, but the Iron Kingdom campaign setting, which is not yet published, is not needed to run this adventure. The Longest Night, the first module in the Witchfire Trilogy, is not needed to run this module but is highly suggested. More information on the Iron Kingdoms can be found at www.ironkingdoms.com.


The Book
The module, a standard laminated, perfect bound booklet, is sixty-four pages long. The margins are ends of a gray scroll and are generally 1.5" wide.
The cover illustration, by Matt Wilson, depicts Alexia standing with Witchfire in hand, with the mechanical walls of the temple of Cyriss. Shadow of the Exile's cover illustration is similar in quality to that of The Longest Night, but, in my opinion, does not quite match that of the cover of The Longest Night. The interior artwork, by Brian Snoddy and Matt Wilson, is composed of black and white drawings that match the mood and feel of the module perfectly. They vary from pictures of locations to important characters in the module to monsters such as the gatormen.
The maps are informative and often artistically rendered, including a grid and scale where necessary, and including major furniture and physical features.
The content of the book is divided into the Introduction, the three Acts of the adventure (detailed in "The Meat" below), and three appendices. The Introduction is fairly standard, with the addition of an overview of the Iron Kingdoms and a few of its gods. The Appendices detail the creatures of the module, including several new ones that I assume will be further detailed in Privateer's Monstronomicon, Volume 1, the major NPCs statistics, even those such as Ulfass Borloch and Vahn Oberen that are unlikely to be used in the module, and rules on firearms in the Iron Kingdoms.


The Meat
Shadow of the Exile picks up where the Longest Night left off, in the aftermath of an invasion by undead lead by Alexia, a misguided sorcereress bent on revenge on the city of Corvis for the execution of her mother. Alexia now seeks to bring her mother back to life through resurrecting her in the temple of Cyriss, the Clockwork Goddess, found in the depths of the bayou to the northeast of Corvis through the use of the dark sword Witchfire. The PCs can be brought in to this adventure through either the influence of the priest Father Dumas, if they played through the Longest Night, or Captain Helstrom, if they did not.
After doing some research and questioning to discover the exact location of the temple, the PCs must charter a boat to reach the temple. A number of encounters in the bayou alternatively help and hinder the PCs along their way, including encounters with the interesting gobbers found in the first adventure and a variation of lizardfolk called gatormen. The PCs also discover that members of the kingdom's old secret police, the Inquisitors, are also on their way to the temple. The picture of the gatormen presented in Shadow of the Exile is particularly good at providing an intriguing look at the gatormen. The location of their village, inside a giant metal construct, also provides a nice touch that fits the setting well.
After their voyage through the bayou, the PCs arrive at the temple of Cyriss, Maiden of Gears. The temple is a huge cubic structure, made of a mixture of magic and technology and filled with angry, evil priests of Cyriss and their construct servants, the Servitors of Cyriss. Alexia and the Inquisitors have both arrived before the PCs, killing many of the temple's defenders and throwing the area into a beehive of activity. The PCs must navigate through the temple and its angry defenders until they make their way to the location where Alexia is attempting to perform a ritual to resurrect her mother and her mother's coven. To distract the PCs while she tries to bring back her mother she sends the zombified remains of her mother's coven to attack the PCs. If the PCs are victorious, then the coven is destroyed, and Alexia is sent hurtling into the machinery core of the temple and her supposed doom. The PCs then recover Witchfire.
When the PCs return to Corvis they discover that it has been taken over by the exiled former ruler of Cygnar after which the module is named, Vinter Raelthorne IV. Captain Helstrom reveals to the PC that Father Dumas has been captured, and that Raelthrone, through his cronies Vahn Oberen and Ulfass Borloch, is seeking Witchfire.Captain Helstrom reveals that Father Dumas is being held in the jail beneath the courthouse. He provides them with a map that allows secret entrance into the cell block where the Father is held so that the PCs can pull of a rescue. Helstrom cannot do it without compromising his position as a spy. While going through the rescue attempt the PCs discover a new menace that Raelthorne has gathered from the wastes. The rescue attempt ends Shadow of the Exile. The module closes with a list of adventure hooks that can be used until the third module of the trilogy; The Sleeping Legion is released in August.


The Good
Shadow of the Exile shares most of the Longest Night's strengths but is able to avoid most of its weaknesses. Most of all it is an interesting and entertaining adventure dripping with mood and style. From the bits of technological and magical devices found in the module, the steamship trip up the bayou, the techno magical wonder of the Temple of Cryriss, to Corvis, City of Ghosts, the entire module provides a rich setting that draws upon many conventional fantasy standards and twists them into something fresh, and new. The adventure is also able to avoid most of the flaws of The Longest Night. Whether it wad due to listening to the fans (in regards to the absence of critical spell lists for spellcasters such as Alexia) or due to natural maturation of the production process, the result is the same.


The Bad
While mostly avoiding the flaws of The Longest Night, Shadow of the Exile does take one of the more minor flaws of The Longest Night and expand on it greatly. While the Longest Night suffered from a minor threat of linearity it was able to avoid it in many areas, especially in the parts of the module that took place in Corvis. Shadow of the Exile, however, is much more linear than its predecessor, with few alternatives possible in the presented flow of the adventure.
Also, while Privateer claims it is easy to remove the technological aspects from the setting, and a way it is for the Longest Night, it would be much more difficult to do so for Shadow of the Exile. To change the Temple of Cryiss in particular, with its omnipresent technological flavor, would probably be more work to remove than it is worth.

Rating: 4/5

 

[Simon Collins]

Beware! This review contains major spoilers.
This is not a playtest review.

Price: $9.95
Page Count: 64
Price per page: About 15 cents per page
Designed for Character Level: 3-5

External Artwork: A superb piece of colour art showing the main villainess holding a sword and packing a pistol, to a background of huge mechanical gears and mechanised test tubes.

Extra Page Use: The back page gives an introduction and overview to the adventure. Both inside pages are blank. The first three pages give credits, OGL and contents.

Internal Artwork: Excellent black and white sketches which fit the theme and mood of the module well, and enhance the text appropriately.

Maps: The maps are a little dark and the scale is not defined.

Page Layout: Good text density, with little white space, but fairly wide margin on the page side.

Writing Style: Engaging style, though perhaps a little informal at times for my liking (a minor example, the use of the word 'grungy'). Regular but sparse typos that do not interfere with reading.

The Adventure:

The module begins with some conventions and an adventure summary before going on to give some detail on The Iron Kingdoms, which the adventure is set in. This information seems mainly new compared to that given in Part 1 of the trilogy, and details information on the various kingdoms, including elven and dwarven lands beyond the Kingdoms.

The adventure begins with the PCs learning from their ally (from Part 1) Father Dumas that his niece (the main villainess from Part 1, Alexia) is headed towards the Temple of Cyriss, the Clockwork Goddess. Alexia is attempting to resurrect her mother using a mechano-magical device located within the temple. The temple lies in the swamps to the north of the city of Corvis where the PCs are currently located. The PCs also receive a threatening note from the evil wizard Oberen asking the PCs to recover the magical sword from Alexia which she took from Dumas' church in Part 1. There is a sidebar giving some information on the temple of Cyriss. The PCs must discover where the temple lies from roleplaying and Gather Information checks, and hire a boat to reach the temple. Various boat options are given, though one boat and its crew are detailed. The PCs journey through the swamp on a steam-powered paddle boat. On the way they encounter some locals who can give some advice and rumours (there is also a sidebar on food and drink), some swamp shamblers (undead), an ambush by swamp gobbers (humanoids), a tower containing razorbats and a thrall (undead) left by Alexia to harass pursuers, the shipwreck of a group of Inquisitors, men loyal to Oberen sent to pursue Alexia (there is also an amusingly titled sidebar 'Nobody Expects The Cygnaran Inquisition!' which details the background of the Inquisitors), an ambush by Gatormen (reptilian humanoids) which severely damages the steamboat, and a chance to roleplay a possible alliance with the Gatormen as the PCs head overland towards the Temple of Cyriss.

The PCs then enter the temple, which is a very strange location packed with mechano-magical machinery guarded by worshippers of Cyriss and machines called Servitors. In addition, worshippers killed by Alexia, who has already infiltrated the temple, now rise as undead to threaten the PCs. The PCs must work their way through the maze of the temple facing various enemies, tricks, traps, secret doors, and magic before finally catching Alexia and (hopefully) defeating her. If the PCs recover the magical sword, advice is given for helping the GM to deal with situations of players trying to use this powerful artefact.

When the players return to Corvis, the previous ousted ruler of Corvis, Raelthorne the Elder has reappeared and taken control of the city using Inquisitors and the forces of a new race, the Skorne, who the ex-leader has been feting during his absence from Corvis. Various options are given for sneaking into the city, where they discover from an ally in the Watch that Father Dumas has been taken to be tortured by the Inquisitors. The PCs can then attempt to rescue Father Dumas from the clutches of the Inquisition by entering the dungeons below the courthouse through the sewers. The PCs have a chance to rescue and interact with several other important political and criminal prisoners. The adventure wraps up with some options for hiding Father Dumas after his rescue and some future adventure options.

The Appendices give stats and descriptions for new monsters (Cane Leech, Clockwork Priest, The Coveners, Gatorman, Great Oyster, Servitor of Cyriss, Skorne Warrior, Risen, and Tunnel Terror), and Characters. There is a final section detailing firearms and ammunition, including a sidebar on the use of Feats and Skills in relation to firearms, and some sample firearms.

The High Points: An unusual and original setting, a well-balanced mixture of roleplaying, combat, skill use, and traps. There is a complex but cohesive plotline, with well-detailed NPCs and plenty of useful advice for the GM for running the adventure. The art is excellent and well-suited to the dark nature of the setting.

The Low Points: Unlike Part 1 of this trilogy, I found the thought of using this adventure in a generic setting to be an overwhelming one. The main location in the adventure, a dungeon built of mechano-magical artifacts, and the heavy influence of steam and firearms would make modification of this part much more difficult than Part 1. Some of the plotline felt a little bit railroaded at times, though not to the overall detriment of the adventure.

Conclusion: An exciting adventure in an unusual setting, that would be tough to modify to a more generic setting. Loads of original ideas and interesting sidebars and a must if you are using the Iron Kingdoms setting and enjoyed Part 1 of the trilogy.

 

[trancejeremy]

Shadow of Exile is the 2nd adventure in the Witchfire Trilogy from Privateer press. It's 64 pages and priced at a very reasonable $9.99. One actually wonders why they used 64 pages, because they also happen to use extremely large outside margins, about 1 3/4". Sometimes the margin is used for a sidebar, but very rarely. The interior artwork is pretty good and the maps are clear, if a bit too much on the artistic side for my taste.

Because this is set in Privateer's own setting, which no one else has (as it the main setting book isn't out yet), this module starts off with a 6 page overview of the setting (it's somewhat steampunkish). The adventure itself consists of 3 main parts, the first two of which revolve around tracking down and capturing a woman (the one depicted on the cover), or at least stopping her from going to this temple and ressurecting her dead mother. Several reasons why the PCs are asked to do this are given (including some for those who haven't played the first module).

The first part (about 15 pages) revolves around a journey through a swamp on a boat to the temple on a steamboat. This is basically a gauntlet - the PCs get several things thrown at them that they have to deal with. While not exactly Deliverance, it's pretty swampy in terms of what happens. I thought this was pretty much the dullest part of the adventure.

The second part deals with the Temple itself. It's a temple dedicated to a goddess of Technology, so it has all sorts of technological gadgets in it. Basically, the PCs must do a room to room seach following their quarry, as well as deal with the priests of the Temple (who aren't happy being invaded) as well as the forces of the woman they are chasing, and other people chasing her.

The third part takes place in the city the players left from (Corvis). It seems there was something of a coup, and person that hired them has been arrested. They must break into the jail and free him.

It ends with three appendices - one for new monsters, one for stats of NPCs, and a small one on firearms.

All in all, it's a very interesting adventure. For the most part, it's very imaginative, especially the Temple. Most of the NPCs are well detailed in terms of personality and seem real. However, there are several downsides.

For one, the players are on rails. They really have no choices at all in this adventure. They must follow an exact path. That's good for writing adventures, but not much fun for the players.

Similarly, none of their actions really matter. They are preordained to fit in the story arc of the module.

For another, the main character is described as being neutral. Yet she casually kidnaps innocent people, enslaves them, then murders them so she can turn them into zombies. If that's not evil, well, very little is. This might be minor for some people, but it bugs me.

While they do try to give you enough to make it stand alone, it does on a few occasions reference material on their website or the previous module in this series. I think that is generally a bad thing.

So, ultimately, while this is a pretty good module, it's also a bit problematic and it's only really useful if you want to run a game set in their setting (the Iron Kingdoms). And even then, you'll probably want to wait until their main setting book comes out. I would give it a 3 1/2, but it seems best to round down to a 3. It probably would have been a much better novel or novella, since it's apparently trying to tell a story.

 

[Canada_K]

Bottom Line: Worth owning. Vastly improved from the first in the series, though it still suffers from inflexible linearity. A clever and enjoyable series of encounters.

The Nitty Gritty Review: Once again, the presentation and artwork of the second book in the Witchfire trilogy are absolutely top of the line. This is important in my mind, because it shows that Privateer Press takes their products seriously, and that they intend to be among the best of the d20 publishers.

As with "The Longest Night", "Shadow of the Exile" is excruciatingly linear. The entire book is really a series of encounters, superficially strung together. There are three main scenarios, each shoe-horned together in fairly awkward fashion.

(1) Boat journey through hostile a swamp.
(2) Penetrate a mechanical dungeon.
(3) Break a major NPC out of prison.

Now I am happy to give credit where credit is due: each of these scenarios is very well designed. The writing is clear and engaging, the encounters are challenging, and most important they are interesting to play. These writers know their stuff! What I particularly liked is that there is a bit of a twist to each one of them. For the swamp scenario, the players have to manage most of the encounters from the boat, ever mindful that if the boat is damaged or destroyed they are stranded in hostile territory with no means of escape. The mechanical dungeon is better than your usual dungeon crawl because it is such a foreign and sinister environment, filled with robot-constructs and unknown creatures. The jail break is also memorable because the party has a time limit before their most enduring NPC contact is tortured to death.

Each of these scenarios is a well-written adventure in its own right. The problem is the way the party is forced to leap-frog from one to the other. Once the players polish off one objective, they have no way to get to the next one until one of the two main NPCs (Father Dumas or Captain Helstrom) gives them some crucial bit of information. In other words, the party just goes around doing what somebody else tells them. This is OK once in a while, but most players would grow to resent this. It robs them of a sense of contributing to the campaign, because ultimately all they did was follow someone else's directions. They were just the hired muscle.

I also disliked some contrived plot elements in the Mechanical Dungeon scenario. First was the fact that some areas described the residents going about their daily routine, even while they are under invasion by THREE different power groups. To my thinking, every last occupant would have assembled together to repel the intruders. Second was the forced ending to the climax. No matter what the players do, the main opponent is to fall down a deep shaft at the end of combat, and no one knows if she lives or dies. I dislike artificial plot elements. I tend to be of the opinion that if a designer has to force an event for the sake of the plot, he needs to redesign the plot. Besides, this is a cliche plot device. Most seasoned players know that when a villain falls to a mysterious end, it automatically means he or she survived and will show up again in the near future.

If you are going to invest in "The Shadow of the Exile" I highly recommend getting the entire trilogy. I think each book is stronger when taken in context of the whole story. The three books cost me $50 Canadian, which is a pretty good deal given how much material you get.