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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2009410" data-attributes="member: 172">The Siege of Durgam's FollyThe Siege of Durgam's Folly is a mixed wilderness and dungeon adventure written by prolific d20 system author Mike Mearls and published by Necromancer Games. The adventure is designed fo 4 to 6 characters of 6th to 8th level.A First LookThe Siege of Durgam's Folly is a 32 page sadle-stitched softcover book priced at $9.95 US.The cover and interior art are handled by frequent Necromancer Games artist Brian Leblanc. The cover depicts a squad of ogres led by an ogre mage issuing forth from the gate of a keep. Though I am not normally a big fan of LeBlanc's art, this cover picture is actually quite nice.The book has the same high text density that is typical on Necromancer Games products.A Deeper LookWarning: This section contains spoilers to secrets behind the adventure.The namesake of the adventure, Durgam's Folly, is a keep that stands on the frontiers of the hypothetical kingdom. The catalyst of the adventure is a wizard by the name of Theodocious who resides at the keep.Theodocious has been charged by the king to come up with new magical defenses for the kingdom. He devises a new breed of clockwork golem that can replicate and adapt. The results are all too successful, and the "brain gear" that controls the clockwork creatures achieves self awareness and takes control of the fortress. Unbeknownst to Theodocious, the keep was build on the site of an ancient temple of a blasphemous deity, and the dark magics of the temple twisted his creation.The brain gear has set about creating more clockwork minions, and enlisted the help of an ogre mage (and through him, some ogres) to assist in its schemes.The PCs become involved in the adventure when they are hired as part of the guards for a caravan headed to Durgam's folly with some expensive supplies for Theodocious.The adventure is divided into three acts.The first act covers the travel en route to Durgam's folly. In addition to getting to know the other caravan guards (the leaders of which have fleshed out personalities), the party will run across some trouble along the way. In addition to some random brushes with some ravenous beasts, the party run across a thorp that has been sacked by some ogres as well as the ogres responsible for the carnage. There are role playing possibilities in here; the guards stumble across a drunken ogres and they players can get some important information out of the ogre if the they can convince the guard to withhold her vengeance.The second part of the adventure covers the actual siege of Durgam's Folly. The PCs arrive at the keep to find it occupied by the brain gear's ogre magi ally and his ogre minions. The key to the area describes the salient features of the keep, but creatures are not keyed to specific locations. Rather, there are a number of ogres within the keep and it is up to the GM (with a few words of advice from the author) to decide how respond to the player's tactical decisions.Once the players have made their way within the keep and dealt with the ogres, they can go on to the third act, which takes the party to the dungeons beneath the keep that once housed the workshops of Theodocious and are now the home to the clockwork constructs. This section is a more typical dungeon crawl with challenges keyed to locations. Here the players must deal with the clockwork constructs and some other threats, such as demonic servitors sent by Necromancer Games' favorite demon lord.The appendices contain a new magic item, and several new creature types that make up the clockwork colony. The clockwork creatures include several distinct types of clockwork creatures that fill different roles, and a clockwork template that is applies to organic creatures that have been converted to into minions of the brain gear.ConclusionsIn essence, The Siege of Durgam's Folly is a fairly straightforward adventure with some additional elements to make it interesting. The first part is a typical wilderness and exploration trek with some good roleplaying potential, the second part is more tactical challenge than room-to-room monster hack, and the third part is a dungeon crawl with some complications against an engaging new foe.Overall, the adventure appears easy to run but has a lot of good play potential that should satisfy a variety of players.-Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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