Simon Collins
Explorer
Beware! This review contains major spoilers.
Price: $3.95
Page Count: 22 (plus extra maps)
Price per page: About 6 cents per page
Designed for Character Level: 4-5
Format: 4 Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) files downloadable from www.0onegames.com - a 5.47 MB adventure and three maps (514, 694 and 291 KB respectively).
External Artwork: The first page is an attractive colour piece of artwork, slightly reminiscent of Manga cartoons, showing the main villainess and her half-orc cronies entering through a door.
Additional Page Use: The second page has the OGL and credits, the third page has contents and the back/last page has an introduction and overview of the adventure.
Internal Artwork: Several black and white sketches and a colour picture all in the same cartoony style as the cover, but generally of good quality.
Maps: The maps (which take up 3 pages of the module plus the three extra files) are all in full colour and are very nicely done in 3D - the quality of these is better than any other d20 publisher I have come across so far. A pleasure to behold.
Text Density: The text density is poor, the module using a large font (though it makes it easy on the eye) and with a good deal of white space.
Text Style: The style is clear and concise, and only occasionally betrays the author's Italian nationality.
The Adventure: In a complex background story, a female thief called Zifis has poisoned the head of the noble Andwan family. With the help of her right-hand half-orc and a bunch of thugs, she then imprisons the noble's widow in the family villa, and attempts to retrieve the family legacy. The only problem is, the deceased patriarch hid his fortune beneath the villa in a dungeon riddled with traps, and Zifis can't circumvent them, nor does the widow know. Posing as the noble widow Sherl Andwan, she approaches the PCs to con them into braving the traps and retrieving the legacy for her, in return for a hefty reward. Meanwhile, her arch-enemy and ex-lover, the dwarven mage-thief Harvey Blackmoor has been keeping an eye on Zifis' activities. He, in turn, poses as an Andwan family friend, exposing Zifis' pretence secretly to the PCs, in an attempt to gain the treasure for himself.
The PCs must gather information, solve puzzles and circumvent the deadly traps beneath the villa to rescue the imprisoned widow and retrieve the treasure. The puzzles hinge on the ex-patriarch's love of rare birds, in particular a predilection for a peacock with a magical song - the PCs must do some detective work to discover how to use the bird. The traps include a stone golem, a pit trap covered by an illusion and a fireball that flies randomly round a corridor that encircles the final treasure room. In addition, the PCs must avoid the attentions of the two groups of thieves who covet the treasure the PCs are attempting to retrieve.
The module is split into two sections. Firstly, there is a list of events that are triggered by certain PC actions (e.g. When the PCs attempt to expose Zifis, this is what happens). These events can take place in any order and may not happen at all. In the second section, the locations in the villa and the dungeon beneath it are detailed. An appendix gives NPC stats with some roleplaying information.
The High Points: If the DM is relatively experienced, the roleplaying possibilities in the first section of the adventure could be developed nicely, particularly the double scam on the PCs. The adventure is flexible enough to fit into most standard fantasy campaigns, and has a nice mixture of detective work, roleplaying, traps/puzzles, and (possibly) combat. The maps are beautifully rendered.
The Low Points: The players need to be interested in the detail of their setting and are required to do a fair amount of detective work and to ask questions about things they may not think to ask about, or which they may not deem important. This may lead to the death of the PCs and it is important that the DM give the players a few pointers in the right direction without giving too much away too soon. Some more detailed information on scaling and modifying the adventure would have been good, along with advice to less experienced DMs on how to best run the adventure in line with the comments above.
Conclusion: Although the adventure in and of itself is not stunning and is lacking the detail that would have raised it up a notch, its a solid piece and is recommended for those DMs and players who like puzzles, traps and roleplaying. And those who like nice maps!
Price: $3.95
Page Count: 22 (plus extra maps)
Price per page: About 6 cents per page
Designed for Character Level: 4-5
Format: 4 Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) files downloadable from www.0onegames.com - a 5.47 MB adventure and three maps (514, 694 and 291 KB respectively).
External Artwork: The first page is an attractive colour piece of artwork, slightly reminiscent of Manga cartoons, showing the main villainess and her half-orc cronies entering through a door.
Additional Page Use: The second page has the OGL and credits, the third page has contents and the back/last page has an introduction and overview of the adventure.
Internal Artwork: Several black and white sketches and a colour picture all in the same cartoony style as the cover, but generally of good quality.
Maps: The maps (which take up 3 pages of the module plus the three extra files) are all in full colour and are very nicely done in 3D - the quality of these is better than any other d20 publisher I have come across so far. A pleasure to behold.
Text Density: The text density is poor, the module using a large font (though it makes it easy on the eye) and with a good deal of white space.
Text Style: The style is clear and concise, and only occasionally betrays the author's Italian nationality.
The Adventure: In a complex background story, a female thief called Zifis has poisoned the head of the noble Andwan family. With the help of her right-hand half-orc and a bunch of thugs, she then imprisons the noble's widow in the family villa, and attempts to retrieve the family legacy. The only problem is, the deceased patriarch hid his fortune beneath the villa in a dungeon riddled with traps, and Zifis can't circumvent them, nor does the widow know. Posing as the noble widow Sherl Andwan, she approaches the PCs to con them into braving the traps and retrieving the legacy for her, in return for a hefty reward. Meanwhile, her arch-enemy and ex-lover, the dwarven mage-thief Harvey Blackmoor has been keeping an eye on Zifis' activities. He, in turn, poses as an Andwan family friend, exposing Zifis' pretence secretly to the PCs, in an attempt to gain the treasure for himself.
The PCs must gather information, solve puzzles and circumvent the deadly traps beneath the villa to rescue the imprisoned widow and retrieve the treasure. The puzzles hinge on the ex-patriarch's love of rare birds, in particular a predilection for a peacock with a magical song - the PCs must do some detective work to discover how to use the bird. The traps include a stone golem, a pit trap covered by an illusion and a fireball that flies randomly round a corridor that encircles the final treasure room. In addition, the PCs must avoid the attentions of the two groups of thieves who covet the treasure the PCs are attempting to retrieve.
The module is split into two sections. Firstly, there is a list of events that are triggered by certain PC actions (e.g. When the PCs attempt to expose Zifis, this is what happens). These events can take place in any order and may not happen at all. In the second section, the locations in the villa and the dungeon beneath it are detailed. An appendix gives NPC stats with some roleplaying information.
The High Points: If the DM is relatively experienced, the roleplaying possibilities in the first section of the adventure could be developed nicely, particularly the double scam on the PCs. The adventure is flexible enough to fit into most standard fantasy campaigns, and has a nice mixture of detective work, roleplaying, traps/puzzles, and (possibly) combat. The maps are beautifully rendered.
The Low Points: The players need to be interested in the detail of their setting and are required to do a fair amount of detective work and to ask questions about things they may not think to ask about, or which they may not deem important. This may lead to the death of the PCs and it is important that the DM give the players a few pointers in the right direction without giving too much away too soon. Some more detailed information on scaling and modifying the adventure would have been good, along with advice to less experienced DMs on how to best run the adventure in line with the comments above.
Conclusion: Although the adventure in and of itself is not stunning and is lacking the detail that would have raised it up a notch, its a solid piece and is recommended for those DMs and players who like puzzles, traps and roleplaying. And those who like nice maps!
