Shadows Under Thessalaine

[HalWhitewyrm]

The duchy of Thessalaine is under siege. Fishermen and merchants set sail into the Gulf of Irul Kinthé and never return, leaving the port city of Harwynn's Shoal weeping for lost husbands and sons, and desperate for lost revenues. Pleas sent to Ellgrym's court, begging for aid, are ignored; for Madradur, the duke's capital city, has its own problems. There, the nights are no longer safe to walk; the streets and the sewers swarm with creatures from the depths: grimlocks, orcs, and other, more hideous horrors. And leading them, cloaked in shrouds of darkness, the drow. No men are available to investigate the vanishing ships from Harwynn's Shoal.

One beleaguered province with two very different problems. One stalwart
group of heroes, who may have bitten off more than they can chew, caught up
in them both. Problems that, if they are not careful, might lead them into the grasping tentacles of the greatest underground horror of them all.

Shadows Under Thessalaine is a d20 fantasy adventure for third or fourth level characters.

 

[Simon Collins]

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

Price: $13.95
Page Count: 64
Price per page: About 21 cents per page
Designed for Character Level: 4th

External Artwork: A good colour pastiche incorporating several images, notably a fortress cleverly incorporating three faces of NPCs from the adventure.

Additional Page Use: Two pages have the OGL, credits and contents, and there is a 1/2 page advert at the end.

Internal Artwork: The B&W sketches are generally good, with a few average, a few superb, and one or two poor ones. On the whole, above average. Characters tend to be a bit blocky, but the style is atmospheric and the art remains relevant to the text.

Text Density: Text density is average, margins at top and side take up a extra bit of space though they are occasionally overlain by sidebars.

Text Style: The style is engaging and personalised, the author is effective at getting ideas and atmosphere across, and is prepared to take time out to discuss the PCs going off at a tangent. The typos are infrequent but regular.

The Adventure: The PCs can start the adventure either in a coastal city or the inland capital of Thessalaine. Plot hooks and advice throughout the text, aid with either path.

In the first option of the adventure, the PCs begin in the coastal city where ships and their crew have bee disappearing. Following up rumours of a beach covered in dead fish, the PCs must investigate the disappearances by entering a partially submerged sahuagin stronghold, where they gain clues to the perpetrators of the massive fish kill and the disappearances themselves.

In the second option, the PCs begin in the capital, where they discover the city is under attack from several underground races (including grimlocks, drow and possibly illithid) who are entering the city through the sewers at night. They can follow the trail back through the sewers where they discover a drow outpost and clues to the location of the brains behind the concerted attacks on Thessalaine, where many more kidnapped slaves from the capital have been taken.

In the final part of the adventure, the PCs must enter this mountain lair, but not before they have gleaned clues from both parts of the adventure. As the PCs battle or sneak their way through the lair, they discover the return of a long-forgotten evil that once plagued the lands of Thessalaine and has returned once more looking for vengeance.

The Appendix has all the stats for monsters and major NPCs.

The High Points: The adventure is well-balanced, with a mixture of roleplaying, combat, skill use, traps and puzzles. The plot is complex but fits together solidly and is clear to the GM, as the adventure is well written. Regular advice for dealing with encounters, and tips for modifying encounters to suit stronger or weaker parties, should make this relatively easy for a GM to run. The setting is generic but well detailed with advice for changing details to suit the GM's campaign and should be suitable for most fantasy campaigns. The plot has several twists to it and should keep the players and their PCs on their toes, as well as one or two subplots. For those who like drow, the adventure has plenty of them.

The Low Points: Though several of the major NPCs are well-detailed, for reasons of space the stats and descriptions of the coastal city and capital NPCs were excluded from the text. This would be the sort of thing that could have been included in a freebie web download perhaps. On the whole, depth of character isn't a top priority in this adventure which, despite its complexity and quality, is still a series of dungeon crawls with a few opportunities for roleplaying. An EL summary would have been a welcome addition.

Conclusion: Definitely one of the better adventures I have come across, and succeeds in mixing plot complexity with good old-fashioned adventuring. A well-detailed setting, plenty of advice for running and modifying the adventure, and some excellent plot twists make the module worthy of the price tag. Its also relatively easy to integrate into a standard fantasy campaign. Its only weakness is perhaps a lack of character depth and regular roleplaying opportunities, but then thats not what this module is about. All in all, not far off top marks.

 

[Clint]

Shadows Under Thessalaine is an adventure module for 3rd or 4th level characters, by Monkey God Enterprises.

This review contains spoilers.

Physical Description / Criteria for Review:
The book is extremely attractive, with a high-quality painting depicting some of the elements of the story, without giving away anything. It is a perfect-bound softcover, and 64 pages long. I paid cover price, $14.
My group is 2nd level, and I am looking for an adventure to lead them towards. This is not a playtest review.

Content Density
The inside of the covers have five computer generated maps to be used in the adventure. OGL license (1 page), ToC (1 page). There are roughly 10 total pages of interior art. The page layout is somewhat heavy in graphic design, and is too far away from the edge of the page. The text density of text areas is fair. Overall, a moderate value on content density.

Story:
This adventure is a series of dungeon crawls, bringing the characters from towns to cities, beaches to mountains, underwater to underground. The group has to deal with mysterious disappearances near communities, which require investigation from... blah blah. Total cookie-cutter hooks and setup. The individual scenes are much more interesting than the premise.

To Like:
* The connecting story is broken into three sections, with each one being generic enough to swap in local campaign areas easily.
* The settings for the dungeon crawl are varied and interesting.
* The art on both the cover and the interior is of fair to good quality.
* Graphic design layout is attractive without being obstructive.
* Aside from a few typos, the writing is clear, with few grammar issues.

To Note:
* Cartography is clear and interesting, but is somewhat cramped on the inside covers.

To Dislike:
* No summary of Encounters with CR.
* The NPCs have no depth beyond their brief 'on camera' appearances. They also have no stats. This is explained by space confinements. See below.
* Back of module reads, "suitable for third or fourth level characters". Inside of module reads, "Shadows Under Thessalaine is intended for an average-sized party of 4th level. 3rd level characters might manage, but will find the story particularly challenging." The back cover is wrong, and a DM will have extra work to do to bring in a 3rd level group.
* This adventure will bring characters up to around 6th level by the end. This isn't listed in the module, and it's the kind of thing that DMs like to know.
* NPC equipment is frequently spread between Appendix and the area which they are encountered in. Constant flipping required. Total equipment is not listed for any NPC, but must be derived from stat block ( "No weapon listed under Possessions... ah, it says greataxe under Damage, and look in Area 15 for more stuff" ). This means extra work for DM.
* No list of total treasure value of adventure. See below for why.
* Town stats not given in full, making it harder to find a target town to swap in. Extra work for DM.
* NPC stats have minor errors in them, but nothing horrible.

To Hate:
* EL of NPCs is off. A Drow with three levels of Cleric is listed at CR3, where it should be CR4. This occurs throughout. Replace the word Drow with Evil Elf and the encounters should work. This is less work than it sounds, since Drow abilities like Spell Resistance aren't listed in their stats. Extra work for DM.
* Four pages of SRD monsters reprinted in an appendix. This space could have been used to much greater benefit... like describing any of the NPCs that are in the adventure.

To Despise:
* "3rd-5th level PC, would you like some Bracers of Armor +6? A Ring of Evasion? +3 Chainmail? Minor Cloak of Displacement? +1 Shocking Burst Mace? All of the above? Even more?" This adventure is incredibly poorly thought out in terms of rewards. Total value of treasure available for PCs (not including NPC contracts which are part of the story) to loot in this adventure is roughly 271,000 gp. This comes mostly in the form of magic items (few extremely powerful, some powerful, some moderate, and many weak), coins, gem, and art (some). This is enough treasure to fully equip 4 ninth level characters from scratch, and will horribly unbalance a campaign of the targetted character levels. Every single treasure award would need to be reworked. This alone brings the value of the product down to near-zero.

Conclusion:
Overall, I felt as if the authors had some cool ideas, but really dropped (lost) the ball on rules execution of this module. This adventure is a decent read, with some interesting settings for dungeon crawling. However, it would take a tremendous amount of effort to make it actually playable. This one will collect dust on my shelf, never to be used or read again.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Wow. 1 out of 5 stars. That is, bar none, the worst review any one of my books has ever gotten.

That's okay. I appreciate an honest bad review far more than an inaccurate good one. That said, I would like to address a few of the points you made, if I may.

"The NPCs have no depth beyond their brief 'on camera' appearances. They also have no stats."

That was a judgment call on my part; I honestly felt that statting the NPCs in this particular module would be unnecessary. You aren't the first person to disagree with that decision, and I'll certainly consider doing otherwise on any future products of a similar nature.

"NPC equipment is frequently spread between Appendix and the area which they are encountered in. Constant flipping required."

Okay, I'll cop to this one. My bad. Sorry.

"This adventure will bring characters up to around 6th level by the end. This isn't listed in the module, and it's the kind of thing that DMs like to know."

Okay, this one puzzles me. Why is 4th level to 6th level a big deal? It's a fairly lengthy module; is a two-level gain really so unusual?

"Town stats not given in full, making it harder to find a target town to swap in. Extra work for DM."

What stats were you missing? All the basics--population, population breakdown, economics--are given for both major cities. What else were you looking for?

"EL of NPCs is off. A Drow with three levels of Cleric is listed at CR3, where it should be CR4."

Okay, brief story time. This one's the result of a miscommunication, not a mechanical error. When I sent Monkey God my draft, I included levels only for NPCs, rather than including level AND CR. They had to go through at the last minute--in a time crunch, no less--and add the CRs to the leveled NPCs. It was rushed, and therefore mistakes were made.

Does that mean I'm saying it's not my fault? Not at all. I should have included that information, and I didn't. Their mistake, but my responsibility.

Still, it's an easy mistake to correct. Just add 1 to the CR of all the leveled drow NPCs.

"Four pages of SRD monsters reprinted in an appendix. This space could have been used to much greater benefit... like describing any of the NPCs that are in the adventure."

To each his own. I know a lot of people--myself included--who prefer having monster stats reprinted in the module, to avoid having to go back and forth to the Monster Manual. I stand by this one (and Monkey God's policy of doing the same in many of their other modules).

"This adventure is incredibly poorly thought out in terms of rewards."

Hmm. One or two items--such as the Bracers +6--are indeed higher than "book value" for a group of this level. I did that deliberately, since many of the encounters don't provide treasure at all. That said, however, all the other items you specifically mentioned are entirely in line with the EL of the encounter in which they appear. I believe that the vast majority of the treasure rewards are commesurate with the encounter level of the encounter in which they are gained. If that's not the case, I ask you to point out to me where I goofed, so I might watch for similar mistakes elsewhere. Please feel free to respond by e-mail, if you prefer.

Again, I'm not trying to change your opinion of the module. You didn't like it, and that's fine. But I felt the need to, at the least, explain where/why/how some of these decisions and mistakes were made. Hope you find my future efforts more to your liking.

 

[Clint]

Hi, Mouseferatu. Thanks for your reply. I hate to write a bad review of a product, because I know that we all just love games here. Since you invited my response, I'll clear up any questions you have, and address some of your comments.

A friend suggested that I preface this by listing my two criteria for judging adventures: 1) good ideas and 2) save me time. I can write stories and stat out my own enemies. All I'm looking for from adventures is an idea that hasn't occurred to me, or stuff that I can use in my game (towns, NPCs, encounters, etc). Any extra work that I have to put into the product to make it work (above and beyond understandable conversion to an existing campaign) is a negative. So, when I have to correct anything, it bugs me. When I have to correct a lot, I'm basically doing what I could have done myself, except that I paid to do it.

I've quoted your responses and trimmed out my statements that you were replying to in order to save space. I'm replying to your comments.

"Okay, this one puzzles me. Why is 4th level to 6th level a big deal? It's a fairly lengthy module; is a two-level gain really so unusual?"

I agree, it's not. That's not what I was saying. Me having to figure that out is frustrating, when you (the author) knew it and didn't tell me. Other adventures I buy list this information, why not this one? Even a table of ELs would have been enough to see this.

"What [city] stats were you missing? All the basics--population, population breakdown, economics--are given for both major cities. What else were you looking for?"

In every product I've purchased, the first part of any city's stats is the City Type (village, town, small city, etc). It gives the most immediate picture of the settlement. They weren't included.

"Still, [ELs are] an easy mistake to correct. Just add 1 to the CR of all the leveled drow NPCs."

I understand that it's easy to correct, but at the same time, I bought this so that I wouldn't have to correct these kinds of things. I'd feel differently if there were an errata on the Monkey God website.

Even so, it's more than just bumping up the EL/CR and the problem goes away. It bugs me that I have to second guess what you wrote. Now I think that I have to scrutinize the rest of the encounters, in case another one is off and therefore going to be more deadly to the PCs. Does it matter when we're talking the difference between an EL(Party Level) and an EL(Party Level + 1)? Not really. Does it matter when it's EL(Party Level +2) or EL(Party Level +3)? Yes, very much.

"I know a lot of people--myself included--who prefer having monster stats reprinted in the module, to avoid having to go back and forth to the Monster Manual."

It's a taste thing, I know, so I can't disagree with you. But when it's my money, I want to see stuff I like, and that ain't it. If I had noticed that, I might not have purchased it.

""This adventure is incredibly poorly thought out in terms of rewards.""
"Hmm. One or two items--such as the Bracers +6--are indeed higher than "book value" for a group of this level. I did that deliberately, since many of the encounters don't provide treasure at all. That said, however, all the other items you specifically mentioned are entirely in line with the EL of the encounter in which they appear. I believe that the vast majority of the treasure rewards are commesurate with the encounter level of the encounter in which they are gained. If that's not the case, I ask you to point out to me where I goofed, so I might watch for similar mistakes elsewhere. Please feel free to respond by e-mail, if you prefer."

Here's two examples:

In an EL5 encounter, a third level drow cleric has a +1 Shocking Burst Light Mace and a +2 Buckler. Total value: 22000gp.
In an EL6 encounter, a fifth level drow cleric has a Minor Cloak of Displacement, which goes for 25000gp.

Grand total "book wealth" for a 6th level PC: 13000gp. It's a good rule of thumb that no PC should have a single item of value close to or more than their DMG equipment guideline. Your adventure has seven (Staff of Passage, Minor Cloak of Displacement, +1 Shocking Burst Light Mace, Ring of Chameleon Power, Bracers +6, Ring of Evasion, Wand of Dispel Magic). All for the PCs.

All the stuff that secretly turns a 6th level character into an 8th or 9th level character. This breaks the game, and when I see something like this in a module, I can't use it.

"Again, I'm not trying to change your opinion of the module. You didn't like it, and that's fine. But I felt the need to, at the least, explain where/why/how some of these decisions and mistakes were made. Hope you find my future efforts more to your liking. "

I appreciate your thoughts. I hope that I like your future work more, too.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Okay, I've been thinking about this for a while. I respect Clint's rights to his opinions, and I'm not trying to change them. However, for the sake of anyone else reading this, I do want to make just a few more clarifications.

Regarding the mistake on the CRs of the drow NPCs, as I said, that IS our fault, and I apologize. But that's the ONLY major mistake that anyone has brought to my attention in the seven months this module's been out. So it really IS as easy as just adding one to the drows' CRs.

Regarding the treasure:

The Staff of Passage, Bracers +6, Ring of Evasion, and Wand of Dispel Magic are all in the possession of the main villain. While the module allows for the POSSIBILITY that the PCs will succeed in killing him, it's designed to allow him to escape and become a recurring villain for the campaign. (And it's VERY easy for the DM to turn his "likely" escape into a definite one.) The PCs will most likely never get their hands on these particular items. Even if the do, the Staff has only 11 charges left, drastically reducing its value.

Even without these, the module is a bit higher than average in terms of treasure, I'll admit that. I don't believe it's particularly unbalancing, though, especially since every other item appears fairly in the encounter. (That is, a random roll in the DMG for an encounter of that level could have produced the treasure in question.)

I'll not address the other points, since they're mostly matters of opinion. And I don't mean to sound defensive. I just wanted to point out, for the sake of anyone else reading this review, that the issues you raise aren't necessarily as clear cut as the review suggests.

 

[Macbeth]

This review is of the PDF version of Shadows Under Thessalaine. This is not a playtest review. Spoilers abound, so if you are playing the adventure, don't read this (or at least don't tell your DM).

The book is presented well, with borders along each page that are very nearly distracting, but are for the most part inobtrusive. Maps for the dungeons involved in the adventure are reasonably informative, but not particularly nice. They look a bit small on screen, but can easily be enlarged. The art is good, but doesn't seem to fit the tone of the adventure. The art can also easily spoil the adventure for the PCs by showing the squid masks, so beware.

The plot of the adventure is by far the high point. The bad guys are impersonating mind flayers using squid as masks. The only problem with this plot is that it really plays upon player knowledge (only experienced players will know that low level characters have no chance against an illithid), while the rest of the adventure seems much more appropriate for beginners. Playing the adventure with beginners misses out on the fear the mind flayers should inspire, while more experienced players will probably find the rest of the adventure a bit too straight forward. I really liked the idea of inspiring fear in the players using monsters they know they don't stand a chance against, and the adventure really rieds on the fun of putting low level characters against "mind flayers."

The adventure basically consists of three dungeon crawls, with little to do between them. I would have liked to see more action between dungeons, but the adventure shores up the weak time between dungeons by presenting the first two dungeons so they can be tackled in any order. The first two dungeons seem completely unrelated until both have been completed, giving the DM a neat way of presenting the Shadows Under Thessalaine as three smaller adventures.

The dungeons themselves are, for the most part, fairly uninspired. With the exception of a few encounters, the dungeons all seem too generic. The high point of the dungeon design is the watery lair of the shuagin. The possibility of fighting in deep deep pools, or even under water, adds a large bit of need originality to the dungeon.

A few encounters seem truly interesting, with the players being attacked from all sides, or with other interesting circumstances, but most just seem plain. The adventure could really use some more non-combat encounters, with the only real non-combat encountar being fairly boring (the PCs are just given information for the second dungeon).

Really, I think the author had some very interesting ideas, especially the main bad guys with their illithid masks, but the adventure as a whole comes off as plain, with a few high points. Of course this does not warrant a bad review, it is, overall, a very solid adventure, it just lacks that extra little bit that would make it really shine. The encounters show a good variety of Challenge ratings, with a few that may prove to be a hard battle for the PCs.

Everything is stated out correctly, to the best I could see. The stats for every creature in the book are listed in the back, which is very convenient in a PDF, but might be less usefull in the print edition.

Overall the adventure is good, but not anything new or interesting. I would have really liked to see more creative ideas. The illithid masks show that the author has great creativitity, and I really liked the ideas behind the adventure, but the rather staid dungeons and lack of non-combat encounters hold the adventure back.

Good: Creative premise, some good encounters
Not so Good: Staid dungeons, litle non-combat

Overall: A good adventure, with an original premise, but the dungeons don't follow the creativity of the antagonists.

My Score: 3 Stars (Average), in the best sense of the score. I am tempted to give a score of 4 stars, just for the intriguing premise, but the adventure as a whole is average, in a good way.

 

[Mouseferatu]

An interesting review--and, you might be surprised to hear, one I agree with in a lot of ways.

In retrospect, I do wish I'd included more non-combat material, and some more creative angles to the crawls themselves. (A flaw I hope I corrected with "The Hero Snare," my later module from MonkeyGod.) Out of curiosity, do you have any thoughts on what sort of non-combat encounters you'd have liked to see in this module specifically?

I can offer in my defense only that it was my first D20 module (and in fact my first D20 contract ever), and that I was still using the standard older edition modules as models. I'm still quite pleased with the premise, and I'm not ashamed of this work. It's still, IMO, a solid module. But I agree that it's neither perfect, nor my best effort ever.

Still worth the cost of the PDF, though. ;-)

Thanks for reviewing. I hope very much that if you ever get your hands on "The Hero Snare," you'll share your thoughts on that as well.

 

[Macbeth]

Thanks for the feedback.

As for non-combat encounters, I think you might add some more conflict in either town. The advisor who is being controled by the bad guys (I forget his name at the moment, and I don;t have my copy easily available) might make a good non-combat encounter, since the PCs shouldn't kill him outright (at least not right off the bat), but he cold be acting suspicious. Perhaps the PCs might find him doing something that doesn't seem quite right. They can't just kill him, but they might want to ask some questions.

Another way to work in more non-combat encounters would be to leave less info in the form of notes and maps the bad guys leave behind, and more in the form of interogating the guys. For example, if a note was just left with an address within one of the cities (instead of corespondance between two of the baddies), the PCs would have to very carefully investigate why that address was important. Maybe it was just the person who sold supplies to the mask makers, or somesuch. Basically, if a little less info was left in 'handouts' and more in NPCs, the PCs would have to interact more.

Alternatively, maybe the PCs have to deal more with the authorities in each town. Just because the have official permission doesn't mean street-level guards might not get in the way. Perhaps the PCs have to deal with a patrol of gaurds who stumble upon the same complex the PCs are investigating. THen the PCs have to convince the gaurds to get out, or protect the guards when they are attacked. I just thoght this up, but I really like the idea, since it lends itself to both roleplaying (the PCs have to talk the guards out of taking on the bad guys themselves), and combat (since the guards may not leave quickly enough, so the PCs have to look after them).

Really, it's a good module, I don't want to sound too negative. I really did like it, but it just didn't quite make it above average. When I give the average score, I mean that the adventure as a whole is very average, but some of the ideas within it are excellent.

 

[Mouseferatu]

"Really, it's a good module, I don't want to sound too negative."

No worries. You didn't sound negative at all.

And some of those ideas are really pretty good. I'll certainly keep them in mind the next time I'm engaged in something similar.