The Gryphon's Legacy

[Messageboard Golem]

This dynamic adventure by Wolfgang Baur features classic combat, exploration, and kingdom building, with a castle to siege and settlers to protect from the ghostly marauders ravaging the countryside. This adventure also contains a unique system of tracking NPCs where the monsters actually move from room to room, truly bringing the game to vivid life.

 

[Simon Collins]

Beware! This review contains major spoilers.
This is not a playtest review.

Price: $12.95
Pages: 48
Price Per Page: 27 cents per page, a bit higher than average for this type of product.
Designed for character level: 1st-3rd

Format: Softcover

External Artwork: A good piece of artwork inset into a core rulebook-style boxed effect.

Additional Page Use: The back page gives an introduction and overview of the module, including a reference to the region, period, levels and companies(?) that the adventure is designed for in the Sun & Scale campaign world. Both inside covers contain maps, a nice touch which I wish more publishers would make use of. The first page contains credits and contents. Half of the last page contains the OGL. This makes very good use of the pages available.

Internal Artwork: The black and white internal artwork is sparse, relevant to the text, and ranges from poor to good, most being good.

Maps: The maps are good, with 1 square to 5 foot scale, clearly keyed and easy on the eye.

Page Layout: The text makes very good use of the space. Though the font size is average, there are little or no chunks of white space and the margins are narrow. My only concern was that the shaded boxes used for giving rules-related information are very similar to the shaded boxes indicating text to be read to the players.

Style: Concise, clearly written, and well edited.

The Adventure:

Three pages at the beginning give a guide to the information in the module that is Open Game Content, and some background to the Sun & Scale campaign world. OGC is also clearly marked throughout the adventure.

The next section gives an adventure background - approximately 800 years ago, a famous warrior called the Gryphon built a castle. The castle was eventually abandoned and currently serves as a bandit lair, led by a half-hobgoblin bent on revenge against humans and his partner in crime, a half-drow necromancer. The necromancer has enchanted the bandits armour so that they appear ghostly and they ride undead horses - indeed, the bandits have become known as the Ghost Riders. Three plot hooks are given as to why the PCs should want to destroy the Ghost Riders, with preference given to the hook that grants the PCs land rights for any territory cleared of bandits. This section also includes a new deity - Mordet, Goddess of Death, Prophecy and Transformation, whose priests gain the ability to turn sacrifices into undead beings.

At the beginning of the adventure the PCs travel to a human village in the bandit-controlled lands where they experience a raid by the bandits. The party must track the escaping bandits back to their lair in Gryphon Castle. They travel through the mountains experiencing a few encounters which can help or hinder them, until they find the castle.

The castle itself is designed to be what Gaslight have termed a 'living castle' - that is, the inhabitants can be found in different places doing different things dependent on the time of day or night. In addition, there is information on how to deal with the bandits if they are alerted to the PCs presence, or if they are in retreat from the PCs. This is in some ways similar to the 'Alert Factor' in FFGs 'The Giants Skull' adventure, though more complex. A chart outlines the NPCs whereabouts, cross-referenced to a time scale. This chart can be photocopied and used for tracking purposes. Advice is also given on the types of actions that may raise the castle to 'On Alert', and enemy actions when 'In Retreat'. In addition, each location of the castle has a summary table of the NPCs that are likely to be there at different times of the day, and if 'On Alert' or 'In Retreat', along with the relevant EL rating for each time/situation.

The rest of the adventure describes the various locations around the castle, and the bandits (and their allies) who reside there, as well as some puzzles and traps. A point of note is a sidebar containing information on a new skill: Creature Knowledge, which is essentially a Knowledge check regarding Creature Types, but has some detailed rules for skill checks. There is also a new creature, Rust Mold, presented. The PCs may explore the crypts below the castle which was once a Na'ssith (ancient lizardfolk) temple, and now houses the undead soul of the Gryphon, tortured to death centuries before in his own castle by the priests of Mordet. In addition, there is an evil pool which could act as a nasty surprise to the party. Various clues to the ancient Na'ssith culture remain and PCs may discover these through investigation.

The adventure concludes with some ideas and advice for extrapolation of some of the ideas presented in the adventure, including rebuilding the castle, or taming and training a griffon which the PCs encounter early on (including rules for this). The remainder of the module contains statistics for the creatures and NPCs in the adventure, new monsters (Animated Object (Guardian Door), Ghost Horse, Hookraven, and Tomb Defender), new magic items (earring of spiders, helm of daylight, and skull of ancient knowledge), and a new spell (ghost armor).

The High Points: This well-organised and -presented adventure is the thinking person's dungeon crawl. The rules for the 'living castle' idea seem very workable, and the way they are presented throughout the text decreases the amount of housework that the idea could represent. The actual adventure itself continues this theme, with logical explanations of situations, and innovative concepts (such as the Rust Mold Pit Trap and the ghost armor). I also liked the rules for the Creature Knowledge skill, and will include them as a standard part of my gaming. The notation regarding OGC throughout the text is clear and will be of great benefit to other d20 writers.

The Low Points: This adventure is low on plot and role-playing opportunities, though not without them. There is no information on scaling or modifying the encounters to suit parties of different levels, or those not playing the Sun & Scale campaign (that said, this adventure is fairly generic). I found the section on the Sun & Scale campaign at the beginning to be more of an advert than directly useful to running the adventure, though there are a few relevant pieces of information.

Conclusion: The strengths of The Gryphon's Legacy lie in gameplay, tactics and dungeon-crawling. There are a couple of usable concepts outside the adventure itself - the 'Living Castle' feature and the Creature Knowledge skill rules - which bring it a cut above the standard dungeon crawl, but it still lacks complexity of plot and has limited roleplaying opportunities. It should be relatively easy to use outside the Sun & Scale campaign, with some minor modifiers, though the module would have benefited from some direct advice on these issues.

 

[ASEO]

The Gryphon's Legacy: 5 Absolutely outstanding

Well, Simon Collins beat me to the punch and provides great back groung info on this product.

The thing he left out which I found to be most fascinating about this module is the overall plot. Not only are the PCs venturing through this valley into an unknown and unclaimed land, but they are leading 70+ settlers into the area as well.

Spoilers



The PCs must do more than adventure, they must look after their settlers. While the PCs are clearing out this castle, they are doing so, so that they may use it as the seat of their new realm. The Settlers are the PCs population.

Future books from Gaslight Press will deal with how the settlers fare. Do they prosper or fail and die.

True this module is mostly concerned with the PC clearing the fort, but there are several instances where their actions may affect the lives of their settlers.

This adventure sets a grand stage for a campaign equal parts adventuring and empire building. Additionally it provides the greatest campaign hook for future adventures.

How many times have you read a hook that said town X is suffering plague X, missing people, or about to be raided. Now the players have a reason to protect town X because they rule town X. Additionally, it allows for towns people to be used as PCs as well and in doing so build a cadre of loyal followers for the PCs.

It also gives the PCs more to spend their money on than personal items. Do you want guards for you castle? Do you want to encourage people to come to your realm? Do you want totrain and equip a millitia? All of these become real questions as this Sim kingdom lives or dies under your PCs control.

I was so excited after reading this adventure that I sat down and created a spread sheet on all the settlers, giving each a name age and gender and dividing them into families.

If the PCs leave the settlers alone and goblins kill a woman and a child, I want the PCs to know the victim's names and realize what skills they may have just lost from their settlement.

This will be the next campaign I will run. I can't wait until the next books in this series come out.

Once again the Nation Building/Adventuring campaign is a great idea and I'm counting the days until Gaslight Press releases more info on the Nation Building front.

Well Done!

ASEO out

 

[gambler1650]

In my reviews I rarely give 1's, just as I rarely give 5's. While production qualities matter, the content is what determines a final rating. Good pictures or unique ideas won't save a product from a poor review, but it might push a good one slightly higher. Functionality first, then the flash if you please. Price is also generally taken into consideration. A quick summary of my personal ratings:

1 - Lazy, incomplete, shoddy effort. So disgusted I'm likely only to open it again to review it.
2 - Below average. Not completely unhappy I bought it since it probably has some good ideas.
3 - Average/Good. I got approximately what I expected in terms of content and quality. No major flaws and useful.
4 - Very Good. I got more than I expected. Inspired me enough to think about using it down the road.
5 - Excellent. The cream of the industry. I immediately want to use it somewhere. Excellent production values.


I'd heard about the 'innovative' living castle concept and liked some of what I saw regarding the Sun and Scale world (almost aggressively not unique in campaign concept, but with some interesting ways to allow players to expand their own small empire) on the Gaslight Press website, so I picked up this product. Fortunately I won't have to worry about going overboard in this campaign world in buying things as it's the only product yet available, with the other two well overdue. So how was it?

PRODUCTION QUALITY: For a module, the production quality is slightly above average. The cover is attractive, though I would have preferred the very nice drawing be larger rather than a small box inset into the maroon cover. The back is nothing special. The maps on the inside covers are very nicely done, clear and easy to read. The text is interspersed with drawings, most of them well illustrated and evocative, and there is good use of whitespace. Nothing jumps out and wows me, but the overall feel is a polished one.

Production Quality Rating: 4


CONTENT: The Sun and Scale campaign concept is definitely 'old school'. The world is one where human empires ruled and then were taken out by a reptilian culture, which was finally defeated. The human empires are now trying to rebuild in a world of ancient human and the reptilian culture's ruins/catacombs. The unique aspect is that the players are given an opportunity to carve out an empire for the rising Sun Empire on another continent and supposedly there will be rules put in play in future supplements for dealing with such issues. The campaign world is only described briefly and certainly not in enough detail to understand everything (three gods, a small portion of the continent the players start on) but the world is generic enough in feel that it's not really a problem. The adventure itself touts its Living Castle concept highly, which simply consists of a table showing each creature along the side, the times of day along the top (along with special columns for On Alert and In Retreat) and which room they're found in at those times. This information is repeated in each room's key just for the creatures that can be found there. Nice idea, and quite easy to use although some of the individual keys had minor errors which were easy to spot.

On to the adventure itself (WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD)

The PCs are contracted by the Empire of the Sun to carve out an empire on the Western Continent, with the blessings of one of the three small kingdoms on the continent, Meriador. The PCs have to escort a group of settlers to a village near Gryphon Keep, currently held by Hobgoblins, and of course take out said Hobgoblins to make the new village safe. There are a couple of minor encounters along the way from the first waystation the group stops in and the keep itself, but at the way station there's a pretty tough encounter that aggressive PCs might not be able to handle. It'll require a more indirect approach but still needs action taken swiftly, and new players might find themselves either killed, or not having solved the crisis because it's a tricky issue.

The keep itself is pretty straightforward with multiple ways in, and if the PCs aren't careful they'll
face a very tough fight by putting the castle on alert. Remnants of the previous reptilian empire
are in catacombs below and provide the most interesting parts of the adventure. Otherwise it's
a straight clear out the castle type of situation with only a couple types of creatures to fight. One
of the nice things is that, unlike many adventures along these lines, the evil guys don't know all
the secrets of the things they have control of. I also like that some of the NPCs are given personality and even 'What happens if the PCs win' motivations, although one of them struck me as odd. A hobgoblin female pregnant with a leader's child is listed as raising her child up to hate the PCs if the leader is killed. Assuming hobgoblins become adults reasonably quickly for a humanoid race, I'll assume he becomes equivalent to a first level adventurer in 3-4 years. By this time the players should be at least 10th level... Not exactly a huge threat.

The writing is good if somewhat dry, and the editing much better than average. I do have a couple of minor issues with the adventure, mainly along the lines of not enough information to know why exactly Meriador is allowing the Sun Empire to build their lands right on their border without asking for anything except the security a border kingdom would cause. Another issue is that the adventure isn't suited for a beginning DM or players since some of the encounters are obviously too dangerous for a beginning party to handle if they don't do so with more finesse than is usually seen in such beginning groups. Another issue is that the treasures seem to be pretty Monty Haul (a +2 weapon, lots of GPs). Now, given that this campaign is built around creating an empire, this might
actually be needed, but it doesn't quite seem to fit.

The new items and creatures are pretty cool (the Ghost Armor is _very_ cool, probably causing initial encounters with the beings wearing them to make the players feel like they have no chance, but the armor has pretty stringent limitations).

Some of the dangers seemed pretty... overdone. Blackberry bushes that cause 1d3 points of damage for each five feet of movement could kill a first level character, and there's no guide to not apply this damage if the characters wear armor. Same thing with the razor sharp egg shells... Sliced feet may be debilitating, but hardly fatal. If I ran the module I wouldn't include these items.

Content Rating: 4 (An extremely well put together adventure, but in my mind it's a bit on the mundane side and beginning groups will have problems with it most likely)


CONCLUSION: This campaign world looks to be one to keep an eye on assuming Gaslight Press ever gets out more of it. A true frontier mentality with the players being able to carve out their own niche right from the start. The adventure holds to that feel quite well and if the players are excited about this concept, the adventure itself won't disappoint. I feel that the mundaneness of the adventure once in the keep is might become somewhat of a drag for experienced players, and beginning players will have a lot of problems completing this. Nevertheless, a very strong first effort and one that puts Gaslight Press on my personal map.

Overall Rating: 4

Adventure Module Ratings (Not included in the overall score)

For a Beginning DM: 3 (The nicely put together 'Living Castle' will help the DM, as will the tactics sections for each of the major NPCs. The situations the players will be put in will require the DM to make sure to give them some advice in the form of the guards that are with the settlers, or hints as to possibly good avenues of approach to keep from being overwhelmed. Plus the DM will have to apply a bit of common sense with some of the environmental hazards that are potentially fatal.)

For Beginning Players: 2 (A lot of potential pitfalls and dangerous encounters. I wouldn't expect a beginning group to survive intact.)

Completeness of Adventures: 4 (More campaign info is needed to give the players a good idea of their place in the world, but the DM has little to do to prepare beyond reading the adventure).

 

[gambler1650]

Oops. Meant to give it a 4, not a 3.. Fixed.

 

[ASEO]

This company has evidently fallen off the face of the Earth.