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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Lost Muse" data-source="post: 2454842" data-attributes="member: 18546">Disclaimer: I have received this product for free through Crothian's new review program.  I like fantasy, and although I own Call of Cthulhu d20, I have never run an adventure in the horror genre.  This is my first review, and I will try to be both unbiased and thorough.The Whisper of Horses is a d20 Modern Horror Adventure available in electronic format from Alea Publishing.  Unlike other e-books, this one includes not just a pdf, but also two sound clips, and two video clips.  The instructions claim that the book is meant to be run off a laptop. It certainly is; by making use of hyper linking, this book facilitates online play very well.  Not only does it allow you to play the included sound files without opening them up in an alternate program, but also links to websites that may be of use.  Throughout the book are photographs to help evoke the correct mood.  The table of contents is excellent, and the book is thoroughly bookmarked.  The adventure itself is 28 pages long, and the rest of the 65 page pdf is made up of appendixes, the table of contents, and the Open Game License.  There are no full page advertisements; however, there is a link to Alea Publishing’s website, and mention of one of their forthcoming products.  The text contains very few typographical errors, and reads well for the most part.The premise of the adventure seems fairly standard by horror movie genre conventions.  A group of Native Americans accidentally summoned a demon attempting to defend themselves from the influx of white settlers, but discovered the demon’s true nature and trapped it.  Now, in the present, the demon has returned and must be stopped.  The Party is recruited as possible members of the Fortean Society through a faked contest.  While this is not the strongest of hooks, what self-respecting player would turn down a free trip?Frequently throughout the adventure, bonus experience points are offered for rolling well on Research Checks.  This seems like rewarding those with good stats and ranks in the Research Skill, and penalizing those who have a different idea for their character.  Since the player characters are supposed to be investigators, I suppose that this makes sense.  Another feature I noticed in this adventure was “Playtester Highlights.”  These sidebars contain suggestions based on how playtesting groups ran the adventure.  These suggestions are good, such as having the party appear on talk shows after “winning” a contest.  There are plenty of maps in the book; all the major areas seem to be mapped out.  The quality of the maps is good.  They are all clear, and well labeled.  Any maps that have knowledge not meant for players come in a player version and a GM version.  This is a good thing.The adventure has four possible outcomes detailed, and each is plausible.  Two of the endings (mostly) wrap up all the loose ends, while two of them leave a nice messy ending allowing for a continuing storyline.  Following the end of the adventure, there are Six Appendixes.  Appendix 1 contains the d20 Modern Stats for all the NPC’s.  I am not very familiar with d20 Modern, so as far as I can tell the stat blocks are all right.  Each NPC also has a photo-quality picture of their face.  I’m not sold on this as a good thing, but it helps if you are unable to describe the faces.Appendix 2 contains “eye-openers” events to unsettle the player characters.  These are all neat little random encounters that can be dropped in at various points throughout the adventure.  They can be used for foreshadowing later events also.Appendix 3 contains the rules for Insanity.  If you were planning to buy this adventure just for those rules, but already have the d20 Call of Cthulhu, don’t bother.  Fortunately these rules are Open Source, so anyone can use them if they so desire.  Essentially, Sanity is a resource similar to Hit Points.  A characters maximum sanity is 99 – their ranks in Knowledge (forbidden lore).  If the sanity score ever drops too low, characters develop temporary or indefinite psychological disorders.  (While this models a slow spiral of decreasing sanity very well, I wish someone would make a Sanity Mechanic that was more consistent with the rest of the d20 system, perhaps using the saving throw as a model.)Appendix 4 contains several charms that the investigators may be able to use.  None of these seems unbalanced, and they are all appropriately flavored.Appendix 5 contains all the maps, some of which are repeated from earlier.  As mentioned before several of them come in two versions.Appendix 6 contains handouts of letters, faxes, photographs, and e-mails.  These are nice to have, but not necessary.This adventure comes with a lot of extra material for the over-worked GM.  I think it would work well as a one-shot, but could see some who would prefer an ongoing campaign.  The electronic features are especially well done.  The premise of the adventure is solid, and the conclusions are satisfying.  4 stars.</blockquote>

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