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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tuerny" data-source="post: 2008329" data-attributes="member: 674">Originally Reviewed by Jesse Dean on www.Atfantasy.comThe Spear of the Lohgin is the first of a trio of modules, the Canceri Chronicles, written by Jarad Fennell. It is published by Paradigm Concepts for use in their Arcanis, the Shattered Empire setting, but is easily adaptable to any setting. A group of four to six charachters of fourth to sixth level are reccomended for the adventure.Presentation: The Spear of the Lohgin is a thirty-two page booklet with a laminated card-stock cover stapled along the spine. Internally it contains standard margins and font size, with the margins illustrated on the odd pages by the faded picture of a skeleton, and on the even page by the faded picture of a portion of a map. The presentation values are average, black and white illustrations.The cover artwork, an illustration of a corpreal, flesh covered wightish undead beast, is by Brom and is, as can be expected, well done. Internally there are frequent, small, black and white drawings directly related to the text, and serve as useful, visual additions to the adventure. The maps, of the area around Ashvan, the town of Ashavan, and the Loghin stronghold, are well reproduced, black and white illustrations made with Campaign Cartographer 2 and appear on the inside of the front and back covers. Except for the overland map, they lack any way to determine measurements or distances. Overview: The module itself is divided into an Introduction, the Adventure, and three Appendices.The Introduction covers the Format of the adventure, the Game Master's Background, the Scenario Outline, and the Glossary of Terms. The Format of the adventure is designed around Hard Points, sections that are essential to the plot, and Soft Points, which are meant for background information and add tension to the adventure. The Game Master's background talks about the story leading up to the events of the module, discussing the creation of the namesake of the module, the Spear of the Lohgin, the betrayal by Jude Lohgin that summoned the sinew demon, Quara'te, and led up to the current state of affairs, and recent activities, namely the work of Porphal, priest of Neroth, to hire the bandit Omar to capture the half of the Spear of the Lohgin that is held in the town of Ashavan, that could cause the resurgence of the threat released by Jude. The Scenario Outline lists the hard points, providing a general overview of the main thrust of the plot. The Glossary of Terms provides definitions for each of the campaign specific-terms introduced in the Game Master's Background.The Adventure section serves to provide the plotline for the adventure, divided into alphabetically categorized Hard Points, broken occassionally by numerically categorized Soft Points. The adventure begins with the PCs being sent by the Duke Victor val'Holryn to the town of Ashvan to serve as his represenatives in the town in the wake of the recent plague, which caused the death of the previous ruler, and to gather information, assess damages, and, if necessary, serve as law enforcement officials. From there the PCs arrive to discover a state of chaos with priests of Neroth, god of undeath and disease, preaching to the people, vigilantes attacking innocent folk, and, eventually, a raid by barbarian bandits onto the Chuch of Illiir which captures half of the legendary weapon known as the Spear of the Lohgin. The PCs are asked to pursue by the acting authority in the village, Willem Brecht, who is willing to pay them as much money as he can gather in order to get them to do so, even if it bankrupts him. If the PCs pursue they discover, through encounters, several hints that the bandits went to hide in the Blighted Mires, till they found someone who was willing to pay more than their original buyer, a priest. Descrpitions of the marsh itself follows, with a number of other encounters that lead up to the climax of the adventure, the ruins of the Hold of the Lohgin. It is inhabited by a variety of undead beings that reenact the last day of the keep, as well as several more malignant beings brought to existance by Porphal or the presence of the Sinew Demon. Eventually, after dealing with the encounters within, the final confrontation of the adventure is reached, and Porphal, then Omar and the Sinew Demon are faced. Two optional results are provided to the destruction of the Sinew Demon, depending on whether or not the GM plans to run the two other modules in the Carceri Chronicles. As an aftermath, the heroes are invited to take over as custodians for the town of Ashvan, with a word of thanks from the Duke if they agreed to retrieve the spear without payment from Willem Brecht, and a word of warning if they did. Appendix 1 contains a summary of the statistics of a majority of the advesaries presented in the module, chosen seemingly at random, as well as some information on three other, non-hostile NPCs encountered.Appendix 2 details the unique magic items of the world, including the Spear of the Loghin itself, a magical blade called the Talon of the Tesrin, and Porphal's weapon, the Mace Neroth's Kiss. None of the items have the details provided for their creation or their gold piece value.Good: The strengths of the Spear of the Lohgin lie in its ideas and its tools for easing integration into the GM's own world. The backstory provided is interesting, and provides a good set up for the adventure. The actual encounters are usually very interesting in their premise. The monsters introduced are also somewhat unique, or at least interesting, with such beasties as the Htack, a skin stealing, intelligent insect; the delusion witch, an undead creature that draws people into its delusion of being living in order to reinforce that delusion; and the sinew demon, an outsider that draw on creatures around them to incorporate them into their beings, and allow them to grow stronger. The inclusion of a glossary of terms for various people and deities is useful in clearing up questions that might arise from the fact that there is no world book for the setting, as well as in facillitating an easy transition. The Hard Points and Soft Points are also helpful in this regard, helping a GM, especially one who is new to running a game, in integration, showing which parts are integral to the plot as it is and which are easily dispensed.Bad: While the ideas and premise behind the module is decent, it suffers greatly in execution. The boxed test harkens back to the worst of the first edition modules, frequently declaring the actions of the players for them , and sometimes even going so far as to refer to the players and the charachter within the text, and to the value of items. The stat blocks show a lack of understanding of the rules, with initiative numbers seemingly determined at random in several cases, and incorrect numbers of feats and attack roll bonuses provided. The Challange Ratings provided are very frequently way off, with level two, three, and even four characthers being provided with a challange rating of 1. Experience totals are also provided, which, in addition to running counter to the entire point of Challange Ratings, are often inconsistent.Conclusion: If you are willing to correct the stat blocks and Challange ratings, and ignore the flavor text and experience vaules, than the Spear of the Lohgin can serve as an intruiging, dark adventure. If you are buying it for easiness and convenience, than it may not be worth the price.</blockquote>

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