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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2010500" data-attributes="member: 18387">By John Grigsby, Staff ReviewerCaution: This review contains spoilers. If you intend to participate as a player in any of the adventures in Tales of Freeport, you should stop reading here or risk jeopardizing your enjoyment of these scenarios.Sizing Up the TargetTales of Freeport is a DUNGEONS & DRAGONS supplement for the Freeport: City of Adventure campaign setting from Green Ronin Publishing. A 96-page softcover, Tales of Freeport is penned by Graeme Davis with some input from Chris Pramas and features artwork by some of Green Ronin’s top artists. Cartography is by Rob Lee, with some offerings from Todd Gamble. It retails for $18.95.First BloodOnce more we are turned out onto the streets of Freeport. Just in case you’re one of the uneducated, Freeport is Green Ronin’s fabulous fantasy cityscape and the official setting for many of their fantasy releases. This port city is packed with enough adventure to keep any party of delvers happy for their length of their careers, and this anthology of four adventures demonstrates some of that excitement.Graeme Davis is no stranger to the RPG set, having authored or edited several products from Steve Jackson Games and White Wolf before turning his attentions to Freeport. This is his first release from Green Ronin, but I like what he has done here and hope to see more from him aimed towards fantasy campaigns in the future. Chris Pramas, on the other hand, is Freeport, being the creator of both the port city and of Green Ronin Publishing.The first adventure, “Soul of the Serpent,” could actually be used as the launching point for a mini-campaign. This is a classic espionage adventure, full of twists, double-crosses, and betrayals. A member of the serpent folk seeks to establish friendly relations with the surface dwellers, while a member of the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign hopes to bring the degenerate serpent folk under his command in order to destroy Freeport. The adventurers become involved when the daughter of a noble family disappears and they are recruited to find her. The first part of the adventure is very much a mystery, in which the PCs will be searching the manor for clues and questioning the household. Eventually, their line of questioning will lead them into the city, where they begin to pick up clues that something bigger is going on here. After a lot of legwork and questioning of citizens, they should eventually be able to find the trail that leads them to the crux of the adventure, a descent into the Sunken Temple of Yig. From there, they should find clues that lead them to the traitor among the serpent folk. “Soul of the Serpent” is intended for characters of 5th to 7th level, but with some work, it could be adapted as a continuation of the first three Freeport adventures.In “The Last Resort,” eight plots come together in a jumbled puzzle and the characters must piece together which events are connected to which plot. The action is centered on a hotel named The Last Resort and it is here that all of the plots take place. The adventure runs on a strict timeline and Graeme has done a wonderful job of weaving everything together into a coherent whole that presents a living picture of a night in a fantasy hotel. Though the adventure assumes characters of 3rd to 6th level, there is very little combat here and the adventure is easily adapted to suit characters of nearly any level (I’d hesitate to go above 12th, as beyond that point, they have access to spells and magics that will make it too easy).Where “The Last Resort” has relatively few opportunities for martial displays, the next adventure, “Cut-Throat’s Gold,” offers plenty. When the characters come across an old treasure map, adventure beckons with a gilded finger. However, the treasure is located in a ruined city in the middle of a vast swamp, and even after penetrating the natural surroundings, they find the city far from unoccupied. There’s one more little twist, but it’s so deliciously evil that I’ll not discuss it here to keep the surprise for any players who might be reading this (shame on you!). “Cut-Throat’s Gold” is intended for characters of levels 4 to 7.“Fair Salvage” begins with rumors of a huge and mysterious ship sighted running against the wind so fast that the swiftest vessel couldn’t catch her. When people in Freeport start turning up dead in very grisly manners, the PCs are brought in to find out what’s going on. Investigation will lead them to the discovery of a race of beings that haven’t visited Freeport in two centuries! But how does this tie into the murders? That’s for the PCs to figure out. This adventure works best with characters of 7th to 9th level.Tales of Freeport also offers up a selection of 13 plot hooks that can be expanded on by DMs and two new establishments (by Chris Pramas) to add to your Freeport campaign. Finally, there are some new skills, a new feat, some new firearms rules, and three new prestige classes (Freeport merchant, ship’s captain, and gambler) described here, as well as a listing of errata in the first print run of Freeport: City of Adventure and plenty of player handouts and reference charts.Critical HitsI like adventures that are more than simple “open the door, kill the monster, take the treasure” routines, and that’s what Tales of Freeport offers. You won’t find any simplified treasure hunts here (and even the adventure that seems to be just that definitely isn’t!), but you will find plenty of mystery, excitement, and intrigue. Each adventure stands alone, but all are tied by their link to Freeport. Even so, it would be fairly easy for a GM to transport them to a personal setting and still get very nearly the full enjoyment from them (making only a few necessary changes).Critical MissesI didn’t notice any glaring errors or formatting problems. I ran a few of the numbers for some of the characters and nothing showed up, so I think it’s safe to assume that the book is pretty much error free. Though the work is intended to be used with Freeport: City of Adventure, I still think it should be generic enough to fit into other campaigns and the only problem I found in this respect is the presence of a character class that must be described in Freeport, the Cultist (?) (Clt). The characters that use this class are described well enough that it shouldn’t hinder game play, but the hows and whys of the class are omitted from Tales. It would have been nice if the Cultist class had been stuck in here for those of us who don’t own a copy of Freeport, like me.Coup de GraceWith the exception of character and place names, all text is designated as Open Game Content, which equates to about 90% of the book or so. As I noted earlier, a quick glance at the characters shows that they seem to be in compliance, and the new monsters and other game mechanics that are presented are properly formatted. The adventures are wholly original and look to be quite enjoyable (I can’t wait to run them for my own group, even though they aren’t in Freeport).For Freeport fans, this should probably go to the top of your “must-have” list. For anyone else, take it at face value; a quartet of solidly written, entertaining adventures, some adventure plotlines, and a few new crunchy goodies. Given that the average Wizards of the Coast adventure scenario costs about $10, getting four good adventures for less than $20 is a pretty sweet deal. Don’t be fooled by the small size, there’s a lot of good stuff packed into this product.To see the graded evaluation of this product and to leave comments that the reviewer will respond to, go to The Critic's Corner at <a href="http://www.d20zines.com/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=465&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0" target="_blank">www.d20zines.com.</a></blockquote>

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