The Drow War I - The Gathering Storm

[Crothian]

The Saga of the Drow, Book One: The Gathering Storm is the first in a linked series of three 256-page books. Each one contains a single epic story broken into ten parts, thus making thirty discrete adventures in total, all tied in to one overarching saga.

The adventures are structured to take the characters concerned from first level to thirtieth level. Each book covers a span of ten levels, meaning that every adventure will (if completed successfully) advance the characters by approximately one level of experience. Naturally, this outcome is not guaranteed, nor is the progress going to be one long grind!

The Saga of the Drow begins with a mysterious summoning to a stone circle in the north of the island of Chillhame, close to a fishing village that is about the most unremarkable place on earth. As the Players explore their surroundings and learn more about why they have been brought here, helping the local villagers and finding out about ancient legends, they are abruptly plunged into a burgeoning war. A long-exiled evil has been brooding beneath Chillhame and now its armies seek to march on the surface.

With little time to lose, the Players must bear the proof of the coming invasion to the villages of Chillhame, ultimately presenting themselves to the council of mighty Saragost, the walled seaport city. Even then, their work is not done, as they are sent to bring the alert to several settlements that have been mysteriously quiet of late…

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

Drow War I: Looking Good

Note: this review refers to the PDF version of the product. It is my assumption that the PDF is exactly the same as the physical book less the the physical part.

Also Note: this review is based on a reading of the material. While I have not actually played or DM'd this product yet, I feel that a thorough reading of the book was sufficient for this review's purposes.

Spoiler Warning: this review contains significant spoiler information. If you think you might want to play in this excellent adventure/campaign stop reading now. Tell your DM to buy the book and run it for you. It's worth it.

Author: Adrian Bott
Publisher: Mongoose Publishing
Page Count: 256
Price: $34.95/$24.49 PDF at DriveThruRPG.com

First Glance:
Wow! When I heard about this product my first thought was "I've got to have it!" So, it's a campaign in a box . . . well three books, but close enough. And it goes up to level 30?!?! My first thought was the right thought. I'm very glad I bought it. Note this is book one of three and covers levels 1 to 10.

The storyline is interesting and intriguing. The adventure(s) offer opportunities for combat, role-play and mystery/puzzle solving. While much of the "anticipated" storyline is somewhat forced upon the players, it does not come off as the PCs being rail-roaded into following the author's plot. The PCs have plenty of opportunities to make significant choices that affect the outcome of important events. Furthermore, the outcome of those events is not pre-ordained. The central elements of the story that affect the world at large are massive battles for control of some cities. The PCs actions will directly affect the outcome of those battles, and it's not necessary (or even preferable, in my opinion) for the good guys to win. The storyline continues past these campaign-shaping events regardless of whether the PCs succeed or fail in helping defend the cities from the Drow invasion. The conclusion of the overall story (in the first book) is by no means pre-determined and the PCs actions will have direct and significant impact on the campaign world at large.

Organization:
The book is organized into twelve chapters and three appendices. Chapter One is an introduction to the book and the proposed setting and provides a brief synopsis of the anticipated general storyline. Chapter Two is more specific setting information including geography, political relations between nations, gods and an explanation of the Starborn who are special heroes (the PCs) sent to "save the world." Chapters Three through Twelve are each separate "adventures" in the campaign. It is anticipated that the PCs will work through the events of each chapter in succession and will gain one level of experience per chapter/adventure.

The appendices are Signature Items, Mass Battles and New Monsters. The New Monsters appendix is self-explanatory. The Signature Items appendix gives game rules for special magical items that the Starborn (our PC heroes) gain during the story. Each item is specific to a PC and has powers that vary with character level. It's an interesting concept that seems to work pretty well. Mass Battles is a short, rules-lite system for resolving the afore-mentioned huge battles. The system is EXTREMELY simplistic which is both good and bad. It makes it possible to resolve a massive fight involving thousands of critters in an evening, but it also simplifies the process to the point that potential realism is lost. Seeing as I would prefer to use the huge battles as cinematic pieces, this works good for me.

Setting:
While the author claims that this campaign could be used in any game setting, I would say this is not necessarily the case. The adventure(s) are tightly tied to the proposed campaign setting, and using it in Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk or a home-brew setting would require a great deal of work. I wouldn't want to do all of that work (else, why buy a campaign in a box?), so I think using the proposed setting is best.

The proposed campaign setting is the world of Ashfar. The world assumes fairly standard D&D races, classes, etc. There are two continents with several nations each and a few island nations scattered around the map. Pretty much any standard Dungeons and Dragons character could find a home somewhere in Ashfar. The storyline works in such a way that it is not necessary for all of the PCs to be from the same area. In fact, it's probably best if they are not.

Ashfar has two distinct pantheons of deities that cover most of the spheres of influence/control that one would expect.

The setting chapter is fairly brief (about 20 pages), so it is somewhat lacking in detail, but there is enough background information and flavor there to make it workable for the adventure. The adventures of the first book take place in only a few places in the game world, and each adventure "area" provides significant detail to flesh out the background for those areas.

Storyline:
The basic storyline is that the PCs are iconic heroes called the Starborn who are reborn into a world threatened by a Drow invasion. The PCs, like the rest of the world, are unaware of the threat when the story begins. The opening scene includes a "railroading" disclaimer in which the author apologizes for the heavy-handed beginning. I forgive him. While I think that he could have put forth some additional effort to make the beginning less scripted, it does not detract significantly from the overall story.

So, the Starborn, with no memory of their past, must discover who they are, why they are here and then do something about the badness that is coming down (er, up) on the world. Hmm. That doesn't sound nearly as fun as the adventure reads. Chalk that up to me not wanting to give too much away. It suffices to say that if you can get past the forced beginning of the story and accept that the PCs are not regular Joes but really special heroes then you will find an interesting and compelling story for them to deal with.

Encounters:
This book offers a wide range of encounters from combat to negotiation to problem solving to simple role-play with the commoners. The challenges are well-suited for the characters by level and offer a variety of situations/motivations for the PCs to deal with.

My only complaints here are that there may be too many encounters and some of them are "set piece" encounters that occur "when the PCs arrive at point x." I know it's difficult to get around the problem of timing events in the world to coincide with the PCs presence, but there seemed to be a great many situations that were "waiting" for the PCs to arrive before they played out.

On the matter of too many encounters, it is possible for four PCs to earn over 3000 XP each in the first adventure chapter which is supposed to take them from level 1 to level 2. While it is unlikely that the PCs will do everything that's offered in that chapter, it is very likely that the PCs will earn around 1800 XP. If this trend continues throughout the story then the PCs will be overpowered before too long, and the adventure will become too easy. I would strongly suggest that a DM keep careful track of the current XP and the potential XP available in a given chapter to carefully regulate the PCs advancement.

NPCs:
The NPCs in the book are many and varied. All of the important NPCs have full stat blocks and brief (sometimes not so brief) motivation, personality and descriptive text. There are plenty of good guys, bad guys and people in between for the PCs to interact with. There are a few NPCs that are listed as potential allies that could easily become NPC cohorts should the DM so choose, and there are significant potential "player character's patrons" available, although it is not necessary for the PCs to accept them as such.

Maps:
There are numerous maps interspersed throughout the book. They vary in quality and detail. There is a full-page world map in black and white that gives the general world political layout. This map has no scale, which is annoying, but not a show stopper. There is no world-wide terrain map. There are several maps of regions, more detailed area maps and gridded encounter/dungeon maps. These maps vary in quality from somewhat below-average to average. Some of the regional/area maps do not have scale lines, but most indicate the scale via markers of some sort. Most dungeon/encounter maps are gridded. The maps are not particularly important to me, so their quality (as compared to the rest of the book) does not really affect my overall view of the product.

Artwork:
I am not an artist or an art lover, so this is a hard one for me. All of the artwork (except the cover) is in black and white. The quality is what I would call "average fantasy drawing" quality artwork. It's not special, but not bad either. Some of the pictures are very interesting and, of course, all of them relate to the story at hand and could be used as player handouts and/or show-n-tell devices. The border artwork on every page is somewhat distracting and chaotic, but not detrimental to the book.

Good:
It's all there. Everything you need to run a long campaign. I would guestimate that this single book will be about 100-150 hours of gaming for my group. We're not a particularly role-play intensive group so your play time may be significantly higher if you spend a lot of time with PC/NPC conversations. There are instances where such conversation is required to progress the plot, but much of it could easily be glossed over and likely will be in my group.

The author provides enough detail in the explanations of why things are happening to allow the DM to extrapolate as necessary when the PCs do something unanticipated by the book. It's a really good set up: here's the situation; here's some things that are going to happen; here's why those things are happening; so, what do the PCs do about it?

Not so good:
As mentioned, the sheer number of encounters make it possible for the PCs to exceed the expected level-by-chapter for the book. A well-organized DM should be able to handle this.

Set piece encounters are plentiful, but unavoidable to ensure that the PCs have plenty of choices as to what they do and when they do it. Significant plot events must happen in order to progress the story, so they do happen when the PCs are there to deal with them.

I would have liked to have maps separate from the rest of the book (they are interspersed throughout the book where they are needed). I'll survive this shortcoming. I'm going to print those out anyway, so it's not that big of a deal for the PDF version, but it would annoy me alot if I had the physical book.

Finally, there are no "side adventures" that do not directly or indirectly affect the overall storyline. It would have been nice to see a couple of events that were totally unrelated to the overall storyline and just added flavor. Everything has some impact on the general story even if the impact is as little as "NPC x will react more or less favorably to the PCs if y happens this way." Some people may not consider this a short-coming, but I do.

Conclusions:
Do you want to run a long-running campaign in which the PCs are big-time heroes? Yes? Then buy this book. The organization is excellent, the story is interesting, the NPCs are compelling and the potential game-time is huge. There are lots of good game hours per dollar in this package.

 

[MadDrMark]

The Drow War: The Gathering Storm

Ten Questions about The Drow War: The Gathering Storm

Title: The Drow War: The Gathering Storm
Author: Adrian Bott
Publisher: Mongoose Publishing, 2005
ISBN: 1-904854-39-7

In the tangled wilderness of d20 publishers, Mongoose has had a long and distinguished track record of quality supplements, offering enhancements to the core rules, alternative campaign settings, and reference materials. With <i>The Drow War: The Gathering Storm</i>, Mongoose makes a departure from the areas with which they have had success in the past. <i>DW: TGS</i> is the first in their “complete Campaign” series, a series of linked adventures designed to take characters from first to (I kid you not) thirtieth level. In this first of a three volume series, characters should advance to tenth level and defeat a conspiracy led by a malevolent foe. Each subsequent book will see the characters through another ten levels of advancement.

1) What’s inside?

Inside the hardbound covers are 265 dense pages of material. The introduction and designer’s notes take up one page each. There are nineteen pages of background material, most of them detailing the (optional) campaign world. Only five pages of this section are absolutely essential to running the campaign, demonstrating the author’s commitment to flexibility. Almost all of the rest of the book comprises a series of ten adventures. There are three appendices at the end, detailing signature items (magic items that develop with the characters), a mass battle system (emphasizing roleplaying rather than tactical simulation) and new monsters (fourteen of them).

Some of the adventures are more liner than others. Two are really urban settings with a wide variety of options and locations for player characters to explore. There are six traditional yet creative dungeon settings. Players will have to negotiate three pitched battles. Their actions and decisions are critical to the outcome of the campaign. While this book is a lead-in to the next volume in the series, it would not feel incomplete if the campaign wrapped up after the last installment in this game.

2) Is it pretty?

Mongoose has a fairly good stable of artists at their disposal. In many past products, however, the divergent styles of these artists resulted in a chaotic look. Here, there is a more uniform look throughout the book. Almost every pen-and-ink drawing relates to something in the text and provides yet another resource for the GM. Mongoose clearly resisted the urge to recycle generic Drow art from previous products. The color cover is based on one of the few full-page ink illustrations in the interior. The black and white version is far more crisp and effective than the somewhat muddy color version (I must note that I find my suspension of disbelief challenged by the Drow woman’s footwear. A Wonderbra breastplate I can accept, but five inch stilettos in a fantasy setting? Sheesh.).

3) Is it easy to use?

This book is hardback for a reason. There is a lot here, almost all of it in an itty bitty font. Any GM who runs all ten adventures will doubtlessly put a lot of wear and tear on this baby. Since characters progress through the adventures in order, and each adventure averages about twenty pages, most pertinent information will be contained in a fairly concise section. Given the open-ended nature of some of the adventures, though, finding the precise bit of information you need at a moment’s notice might be challenging. At times, it seems scrambled together in the order that a group of adventures might need it, but if a party takes off in an unexpected direction, the GM will have to scramble. Case in point: the fifth chapter, which details the first urban setting the PCs encounter, has sub-headings that run as follows: Event, Location, Event, Information, Event, Location, Location, Location, NPCs, four more Locations, four NPC groups, Event, Six Locations, four short adventures, five plots, an Event, and an NPC group. As you can see, this book does not want for content. A full index would have been helpful, failing that, short tables of contents at the start of each adventure would have made the material more readily accessible to the GM.

4) How good is the content?

Really good. I was on chapter two when I decided to run this game. With two separate groups. The adventures are fast paced, varied in challenges and themes, and meaningful. A simple mechanic of Victory points allows players to influence the course of battles by the choices they make earlier in the game. Villains are varied and range from misunderstood tragic figures to really vile and despicable scoundrels. A sense of urgency informs the entire campaign. Once the players are under way, they will want to see the game through to the end. Gamers either love or hate the Drow. If you are one of the latter group, and you still buy this product, well, read the cover next time.

5) Is it challenging?

Given the stakes of the campaign—victory or suffer the corruption of everything you hold dear—there is little chance of the players not taking the game seriously. With that in mind, there is a wide range of challenge levels through the course of the campaign. The first adventure should present few serious difficulties to an experienced group of players. In some of the more free-form areas, though, high-level enemies lurk, and characters who behave rashly may find themselves in over their heads.

6) How flexible is the material?

The author has gone to pains to avoid including too much setting-specific material. Adapting the game to another campaign, though, would probably require no small amount of work. Bits and pieces of some scenarios could be used as adventures without the over-arching campaign quest, but the connective tissue gives most of the scenarios their meaning. Gods and religions present another problem. One region has recently converted to a monotheistic cult, which might involve themes unfamiliar in many campaign worlds. The culture of the nations the PCs visit in this stage of the game is distinctly European. Games with a non-European focus might have to make severe changes. With that in mind, remember that this supplement comprises a complete campaign. If the players remain focused on their quest, there seems little cause to use a setting other than the one provided. When I run the game, I will forgo my beloved homebrew world, forged over two decades, and just use the setting provided. I hope Adrian Bott or Mongoose provides more material and maps for the campaign world as a web supplement in the future.

Another review has pointed out that, while characters are expected to advance at least a level in each adventure, they might come up short in some of the scenarios, particularly if there are more than four player characters. This is an opportunity for the GM to graft an original encounter or scenario into the campaign. GM’s who want to focus exclusively on the main quest will have to fiddle with experience awards as the game progresses. When I run the game, I will probably just grant a level for each scenario completed, rather than hash out individual experience points.

7) Is it professional?

In my first read-through, I noticed only two typos, which, for Mongoose, is pretty good. DW: TGS looks good and it is nearly a self-contained product. One needs only the core books to play, which suggests a lot of restraint on the part of the publisher. Mongoose has at least two Drow sourcebooks out already, with another, The Tome of Drow Lore, in the pipes. It would have been easy, and profitable, to require the purchase of at least one of these books to use the Complete Campaign. Thank goodness they didn’t.

8) What’s the best thing about this product?

There is a lot here. While <i>DW: TGS</i> does not free a GM from all preparatory work, as the D+D introductory modules do, the Complete Campaign series does provide an excellent resource for running a big game with a truly epic feel to it. There is enough variety here to keep the players entertained for many, many hours.

9) What’s the worst thing about this product?

There is a lot here. The author’s notes at the end of the book describe the difficulty of balancing the players’ sense of free will with a continuous narrative thread as being the main problem to overcome. To that I would add the choices of what to omit and what to include. Even with a high page count and tiny print, I was left wanting more. A selection of maps added as an appendix would save a lot of page flipping. Many important NPCs are left with no physical description. Some potential foes are left unstated (case in point: the PCs encounter three bandits, of whom one is described as a non-combatant and left unstated. What if she is captured and interrogated by the PCs? What if she tries to escape?). It is easy to understand and forgive such omissions in a work of this size and magnitude. Still, I am hoping that some of the holes will be filled by future web supplements.

10) Overall, is it worth the price?

If you are a GM who values your creative license and likes widely free-flowing games, stay away. This supplement is exactly what it claims to be: a soup-to-nuts campaign, ready to run. Within that scope, players have a lot of important decisions to make, but the basic assumption is that the characters will want to see the campaign through to the end. More independent players will probably feel like they are being railroaded through some of the scenarios, despite the author’s efforts to allow for independence of action. When I run this game, I will explain to the players that they will be representing heroes expected to thwart an invasion.

That said, there is excellent value for one’s money here. Ten full-length adventures for thirty dollars is a bargain in my book. Add to that the innovation of a complete epic quest and you have a steal.