Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tuerny" data-source="post: 2008277" data-attributes="member: 674">Warning: This review contains plotline spoilers. The Root of All Evil is the first in Kenzer and Company's line of d20 modules. Written for a group of four to six first level charachters, it is set in the Reanaaria Bay area of Tellene, in the Kingdoms of Kalamar campaign setting. The setting is not mandatory for this particular adventure however, and is easily placed in any setting that has a large; trade based city and a jungle. It is priced at $12.99Plot Outline The Root of All Evil begins simply enough, with the PCs being hired by the wizard Veoden to recover mithral from the area of a reputed meteor crash. Things become more complicated quickly. To get to the meteor they have to do some friendly grave robbing, destroying the undead remains of its last owner's corpse. Once they arrive they learn that someone has beaten them there, and is using the mithral to forge an enchanted coin, known as the Coin of Power. They can either question the enslaved alchemist, named Arowain, forging the coin or explore some local goblin caves. Once they gain information from Arowain, the wizardess Daresh shows up, grabs the hot coin, which results in it merging into her hand, and, before teleporting away, fires a bolt of black energy that results in Arowain suffering a mortal wound. Arowain begs them to stop her before she enslaves nations using the power of the Coin. Assuming the PCs return with the mithral, Veoden thanks them and asks them to investigate the disappearence of his friend Arowain the alchemist in the same area as where the meteor disappeared. If they tell him what has happened and the alchemist's warning he directs them to Zoa where they can work to find the wizard Geolain who has the knowledge to find the alchemist Halaan who knows how to stop the wizardess. He recommends they take a ship.Assuming they follow his suggestions, the sea voyage is rather eventful with the potential to encounter saughin, a sea serpent, pirates, and an abandoned ship filled with undead. Zoa itself is as calm as a city of forty-nine thousand can be, with ample oppurtunities to run afoul with thieves. Geolain wants the PCs to recover some valuable books from an anti-magic orginization known as the Sentinels of the True Way. This requires a limited amount of investigation combined with combat on the PC's part. After returning the books to Geolain, he draws them a map to Halaan's last location: on the shores of the Reelio Jungle. He reccomends they travel by sea. Unlike the sea voyage to Zoa, the sea voyage to the Reelio Jungle is relatively uneventful.Following the map results in the PCs arriving at a large, ruined castle. Through exploration they can discover that the castle served as a pirate castle before its fall to cannibal headhunters. Halaan led an expedition here before abandoning it to explore the interior. He left a divination scroll to allow whoever follows him to find him. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, the PCs never have to use it. Soon after the PCs find the scroll the entire castle comes under attack by the same cannibal headhunters who wiped out the remains of Halaan's expedition. After a frenzied battle against them, using the aid of a small group of somewhat friendly tribesmen, the Belsona. After the cannibal's defeat, they insist that the PCs travel with them to their village and help to defeat a great evil that represses them. They do not take no for an answer. At the village they discover that this aid involves solving a riddle that will allow them to control a stone golem to use against the cannibals. They also find Halaan, who has been here since the Belsona rescued him from the cannibals. Assuming the PCs can solve the riddle than Halaan and the PCs can leave the tribesmen in good terms and return to Zoa.Presentation The Root of All Evil, a standard laminated, stapled, booklet, is sixty-four pages long. The inside covers have maps on them. The margins are partially white and partially marbled and are an inch wide.The cover illustration, by Hung Vinh Mac, depicts the alchemist Arowain hunched over a forge working on the Coin of Power. In the background stands the wizardess, Daresh, looking upon it with studied interest. The interior artwork is comprised of miniaturized versions of the module's ImageQuest illustrations found at the back of the module. They mostly depict scenes and creatures to be shown to the players.There are a plethora of maps in the modules, as is sensible for a module with such a variety of locations. Each of them is informative and flavorful, matching the tone of the area with enough information to make them useful for their purpose. The DM maps are each gridded and scaled, with the physical features of the mapped area apparent on the map.Overview The bulk of The Root of All Evil details the adventure, but space is also provided for the standard Introduction, Synopsis, Background, and Adventure Hooks. Frequent sidebars provide additional flavor to what is going on in the adventure. The Appendixes provide NPC Statistics, a summary of special attacks and qualities, and a Zoa random encounter table. Interstingly enough for an adventure, a glossary is also included. The module ends with sixteen pages of ImageQuest illustrations. Analysis The Root of All Evil is a meaty module, compactly filled with material that makes running the adventure easier. From the ImageQUEST drawings to be presented to the PCs, to the detailed optional encounters, to the quality maps, to the Zoa random encounter tables The Root of All Evil seems to do what most modules should do make the GM's job much, much easier. It handles the start of an epic storyline well, providing reasonable explanations as to why more pwoerful NPCs do not intervene, while still administring suitable challanges for an adventure of this scope. Most importantly of all it feels like it is worth its cover price. If the GM chooses to use all of the information provided within, it could easily take twelve to fifteen hours to complete the module. On the down side it does include information that has been presented elsewhere. Despite the fact that Zoa is expanded on, it repeats most of the information presnted in the Kingdoms of Kalamar sourcebook on the city again. Some of the encounters, particularly the fifty-one cannibal tribesmen who attack the castle, could prove to be overwhelming to inexperienced and experienced players alike. Also there is some contradiction as to the powers of the Coin of Power. The item's description says it provides two additional charachter levels to the weilder. The text of the adventure says it doubles the weilder's power. Finally, despite the amount of things that go on within it, it is not really a complete adventure. Its conclusion is not very conclusive, and it leads many ends unresolved (which I assume are resolved in the next module, Forging Darkness). Conclusion Root of All Evil is a strong, eventful introduction to the Kingdom of Kalamar line. It proves that Kenzer and Company can handle modules as well as it hands setting material, and provides an exciting introduction to the Kalamar setting. If you plan on running Kingdoms of Kalamar, or have an apprecation for packed adventures, than I reccomend this adventure. If you are turned off by the fact that you will probably have to purchase the adventure's sequel to get closure than you might want to stay. Regardless, Root of All Evil is a good module, and provides a good example of everything that Kenzer is capable of using the Dungeons and Dragons system.</blockquote>

Verification