I hunger for city adventures. I’ve been gaming for years and it everyone has a small town in mind when they write their adventures. Even the mid and higher level ones have the party saving the small towns, just now from bigger and stronger monsters. When I saw St. Anton’s Fire, I was hopeful but worried. Some of Troll Lords products don’t sit right with me, but when the Troll Lords heard I was interested, they sent me a copy.
The module takes place in the berg of St. Anton, named after a Saint whose ability was to bring peace to those in need of it by ending their lives ala mercy killing. Seems that a Znahar, one Blake Lorkan, is interested in these ashes for his own reasons. Znahar are normally healers and cannot harm another living creature, but Blake knows of the legend and wishes to augment his healing with deal dealing abilities. Life has dealt the Znahar a bad hand and he wishes to return the favor and he feels that the ashes are the way to go.
But where does the party fit in? Turns out that the Baron of this small town is a bit mad and his wife, Baroness Adriana, seeks to cure him of his insanity. While that’s going on, a sect of priestly assassins, the Crna Ruk are in town looking for an ancient ritual of their own, and Blake just happens to be one of their servants.
Broken up into four sections, the module allows the players to explore the town a bit and get involved with the ins and outs of the adventure. Being a city adventure, the characters get to interact with guards, thieves, and other nocturnal characters. There are some interesting side treks, especially those involving the evil cult, that clever GMs can use to some added effect. The bad news though, is that it’s a bit of a struggle to do so. The flow is a bit uneven at times and the GM will have to make lots of notes in order to take into account some of the open ended items. This module is a perfect example of where a flow chart should be used to help control the movement and pacing of the adventure.
One of the more interesting aspects concerns how the party can deal with Blake. If they can enter his dreams and overcome his nightmares, well, Blake will be a new man. This is an aspect that still relies on combat and uses some of the Dreaming Sea bits from Erde that we’ve seen in older modules and adventures from them. Still, its difficult for the players to know what actions to take and when to take them as they’re not provided a hearty guide. Of course for those who don’t wish to do this, they can skip ahead straight to scene four and fight Blake directly.
The book closes off with a series of appendixes that includes character write ups, new monsters, spells and magic items. The Ashes of St. Anton allow the user to initiate a mercy killing or attempt to kill something that is a great evil, while the Medallion of the Warden provides lots of resistance and some other peaks like spell storing. Might actually be a little too cheap at only 10,000 gold piece market value.
The module does have a few perks. It’s priced right at $10.95 for 48 pages and uses the interior covers but…if St. Anton’s Fire had come out in 2001 or 2000 at one of the first products from Troll Lord Games, it would’ve been a fine start. But after two years of the d20 license in print, there are too many basic errors here. Things that have little to do with outside taste or control like spelling, editing and basic game mechanics. Those are three heavy strikes against the module.
Throw in mediocre art, poor illustrations, and an average price, and well, you’ve got a below average module. This low quality comes through in the layout as well, as if done in a word processor and thrown through a PDF batch job. There are some good ideas within St. Anton’s Fire. The plot device that allows the party not to have to kill the main villain is a nice twist, but with so many basic issues, this is a module more for those who love Erde or who are in dire need of a module for 5th-7th level characters.
