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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2011283" data-attributes="member: 18387">The Bonegarden:  deadly, devious, damning, and delicious.  This recent module by Lance Hawvermale and Rob Mason for Necromancer Games haunts a reader with its creative and atmospheric writing, taunts a DM by presenting an extremely challenging, yet ultimately rewarding adventure, and tempts players to pluder this ghoulishly gruesome cemetery.  The module is first-rate.  This review will look at some of these areas, by offering my impressions and reactions.  Beware potential spoilers.Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!  I half expected to find Dante's warning chisled on the gate to this deadly place.  The Bonegarden is not a standard module in several respects:  it is large, open-ended, and mostly without a goal or objective.  The Bonegarden itself has a unique premise:  a circular cemetary, one mile wide, build to house the remains of the most devious criminals of the land.  Powerful magics contain the souls of all inside and, much to the chagrin of the many undead denizens housed inside, has prevented them from achieving any eternal rest.  Worse, anyone (or anything summoned) inside the cemetary is stuck...the dark magics containing the dead also can revive them; anything killed within the confines of the cemetery rises again the following night either as a new undead (if not yet dead) or reborn into the undead form that it previous was.  The cemetary and its containment field provide the background and setting for the adventure -- it's uniquely challenging that the objective of the adventure, is to simply find a way out while staying alive.  As you cannot find rest, the living wage a harried existence fighting for their lives against an undead hoard that cannot be stopped; the more intelligent undead plot for a way out or wage war on other factions in the cemetary.  The authors provide a good description of several adventure hooks, the mechanics and operations of the containment field, how to get out -- which can be deceptively simple, pending you have a cleric in good standing -- and, what really drives the adventure, the motivations and plots of the various NPC's that reside inside.  I must admit that I found the premise of the cemetary somewhat contrived -- however, it is so devilously simply, yet wickedly challenging, that I quickly overcame that impression.The Bonegarden could fit easily into any campaign world.  The authors have set it into Hawkmoon, a land referenced in a couple of other Necromancer Games modules providing a nice bit of continuity (cf.  Lamentation of Thieves) but The Bonegarden can be easily adapted to any setting.  The module is somewhat insular, most of it taken up by the adventure within the cemetary, but there are a number of new spells, monsters, feats, templates, and other "crunchy bits" that really add life to the setting that is otherwise farily "dead"...I would not call this a sourcebook, but a welcome return to good old fasioned adventure.  The module is taken up by three main parts:  a description of the cemetary and the most important encounters, a set of imprtant structures, and the underground "city" of Descent.  Characters are virtually free to explore anything in any order.  What really shines in this set up are the politics and puzzles of the place. Each major NPC is fully described, not just the standard good stat blocks and locales, but in terms of motivations, desires, and methods to escape.  The Bonegarden is "alive" in that sense -- it is a VERY political and vibrant setting. Another nice touch, and very much in tune with the "first edition feel" that it strives for, is that for every major NPC the method of fulfilling their motivations is contained somewhere within.  Combined with the fact that the undead rise again every night and cannot be truly killed, the entire adventure really hinges on role playing, the politics, and the interaction between players and Bonegarden denizens.   To me this makes for a unique and interesting adventure, but it also means that running the adventure is very challenging for both the dungeon master and potential players.  A consequence of the free form nature of the adventure is that characters are likely to run into one of the most difficult encounters (the blood govenor) VERY quickly.  The challenge ratings are varied, from horribly difficult to suprisingly easy.  My recommendation would be to run a slightly more experienced party through the adventure than what it recommends.  In short, this is not an adventure for the faint of heart and would be best run by an experienced DM and experienced players.  The rewards, infused by the nightmarish atmsophere, seem great.While the setting and free-form nature provide the backbone to the adventure, what really sets The Bonegarden apart is its atmosphere and creativity.  The dirgeful writing brings a truly haunting melody to this adventure. This thing oozes atmosphere, from the macabre to the sublime.  My favorites include the Midnight Peddler and his "simpleton" follower, a vampiric organist lover forever tormented in a love that the dead are unable to express, the devilish Esbat, and the dark Dredium war over one of the cemetery's few natural resources.  These are images and characters that will haunt you.  Imagine encountering a half ton seer, so large that her hands have been engulfed by rolls of skin and flesh.  Lance and Rob have captured that image, but have taken it to a darker more terrifying reality -- that same seer lives in a glass, water-filled bowl, her skin slightly bluish and veiny suspended in the pallid water, but her eyes flickering with a soul-piercing, all-seeing intensity.  These characters live in the Bonegarden, captured by superb artwork that evokes the music of the cemetary.  The module comes alive and inspires a deep, dark tone that screams to be run with flickering candles, bloodcurdling music, and an adventuring group that will appreciate the threnody of terror contained within the Bonegarden.  In my opinion the biggest weakness to The Bonegarden is sub-par cartography and missing map (the map is now available as a free download).  I wanted a bit more detail and a bit more scale.  The maps seem simplistic and non-enticing...walking around a cemetary is always facinating, with cool graves, tombstomes, and mausoleams.  There are, of course, several detailed, my favorites include a nightmare inducing windmill and a mausoleum so desturbing it is more alien than it seems, but the landscape does not receive the same deadly attention that the NPC's and their characteristics receive.   Maybe more random encounters and more external detail?  A cemetary a half-mile wide, dedicated to the criminals of the land seems to deserve a bit more description and detail.  This will be a very, very challenging module to run well -- getting the dynamics and interactions together in a place of such overwhelming horror.  It could get repetitive figuring out how to make wave after wave of the lesser undead "interesting", and the harrowing rebirth of the undead could make the adventure more an unnerving lesson in attrition that could sap the life out of your and your players.Overall, The Bonegarden is superb filled with great haunting, bone-chilling stuff.  I would highly recommend The Bonegarden as a challenging and deadly adventure.  Undead lovers rejoice!</blockquote>

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