Simon Collins
Explorer
Beware! This review contains major spoilers.
This is the ninth booster adventure by AEG. It is designed for four to six characters of level 9-12. It costs $2.49.
Production and Presentation: This module is 16 pages but each page is only ½ the width of an A4 page. The front (soft)cover features poor colour artwork, the back cover features an introduction for the players to the adventure. There are two mediocre internal pieces of black & white artwork and the central pages contain a basic map of the mausoleum of the gods, sufficient to run the adventure. The final page and the inside back cover contains OGL bumpf. The inside front cover contains advertising.
The Story: The God Of the Undead (Azrael) destroys all creation. He then, unable to recreate it in undeath, comes back in time to ask the PCs to stop him stealing a powerful artifact from the mausoleum of the gods, which leads to the end of creation. He gives the PCs three items to allow them to do this, one of which transports them to the path leading to the mausoleum just before Azrael enters himself. After the PCs have traversed a puzzle-orientated dungeon, the PCs must distract Azrael in his battle with the guardian of the artifact in the final room. One of the PCs who sacrificed themselves earlier in the module is brought back to life by the Guardian in order to kill Azrael in his moment of triumph over the guardian with another of the items using a magical dagger, thus saving all creation.
The High Points: There are some nice puzzles in this adventure, which could be used in a DMs own adventure. There is a nice touch when a beholder’s eye rays cause the PCs souls to be swapped with one another (the players must swap their character sheets). The magical dagger, which ignores all damage-reduction abilities including incorporeality but still only does base 1d4 hp damage, seems an interesting artifact for high-level PCs, though I have not explored its powers in long-term game play.
The Low Points: The beginning and end of this module seem completely railroaded to me. Deus Ex Machina is a perfect term to describe these aspects of the module. Some of the traps are extremely deadly and could result in the instant loss of a favourite PC with unlucky rolls.
Conclusion: There are enough interesting ideas in this module to stop me giving it a Poor rating, despite it forcing the PCs into certain actions and being difficult to fit the concept into an ongoing campaign.
This is the ninth booster adventure by AEG. It is designed for four to six characters of level 9-12. It costs $2.49.
Production and Presentation: This module is 16 pages but each page is only ½ the width of an A4 page. The front (soft)cover features poor colour artwork, the back cover features an introduction for the players to the adventure. There are two mediocre internal pieces of black & white artwork and the central pages contain a basic map of the mausoleum of the gods, sufficient to run the adventure. The final page and the inside back cover contains OGL bumpf. The inside front cover contains advertising.
The Story: The God Of the Undead (Azrael) destroys all creation. He then, unable to recreate it in undeath, comes back in time to ask the PCs to stop him stealing a powerful artifact from the mausoleum of the gods, which leads to the end of creation. He gives the PCs three items to allow them to do this, one of which transports them to the path leading to the mausoleum just before Azrael enters himself. After the PCs have traversed a puzzle-orientated dungeon, the PCs must distract Azrael in his battle with the guardian of the artifact in the final room. One of the PCs who sacrificed themselves earlier in the module is brought back to life by the Guardian in order to kill Azrael in his moment of triumph over the guardian with another of the items using a magical dagger, thus saving all creation.
The High Points: There are some nice puzzles in this adventure, which could be used in a DMs own adventure. There is a nice touch when a beholder’s eye rays cause the PCs souls to be swapped with one another (the players must swap their character sheets). The magical dagger, which ignores all damage-reduction abilities including incorporeality but still only does base 1d4 hp damage, seems an interesting artifact for high-level PCs, though I have not explored its powers in long-term game play.
The Low Points: The beginning and end of this module seem completely railroaded to me. Deus Ex Machina is a perfect term to describe these aspects of the module. Some of the traps are extremely deadly and could result in the instant loss of a favourite PC with unlucky rolls.
Conclusion: There are enough interesting ideas in this module to stop me giving it a Poor rating, despite it forcing the PCs into certain actions and being difficult to fit the concept into an ongoing campaign.
