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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2009615" data-attributes="member: 1129">Unhallowed HallsWritten by Christina StilesPublished by Atlas Games80 b & w pages$16.95When I first heard of Unhallowed Halls, I actually thought it was a Call of Cthulhu module.  After all, with a catch line like “What happens when science leads to terror?”, I don’t normally think of fantasy, but rather, well, science.  As it turns out however, the module is a mystery adventure with a heavy emphasis on role playing that takes place in a small town where the party is invited to a fund raiser for a college.At the fund raiser, the party gets to meet and intermingle with a wide variety of individuals.  This is actually a big part of the module and players who aren’t into role playing and just enjoy hack and slash will probably have a hard time fitting in.  In addition, if the GM is uncomfortable with talking to himself to portray two or more NPCs, he’ll have some problems of his own.  In such a case, I would recommend that he writes out the dialog and passes copies around to the players for quick reading.After the party is in town for a while, they’ll learn that not everything is right in the area.  For example, there are rumors of monsters wandering the tunnels.  There are missing students.  There are funds missing from the school.  To make matters worse, immediately after the ball, one of the guests at the fund raiser, the priestess, turns up missing. In short, there is something that requires the work of adventurers to handle.The party will get to explore Grimm Thorpe University and see what the students are up to and perhaps encounter something that shouldn’t be there.  Seems that whatever is making the students turn up missing hasn’t perfected the process yet as one of the creatures so made, a nightling, still possesses its intelligence and is willing to help the party finish it’s evil master.During the course of the mystery, the party will search through the Grimm Thrope University, the Chancellor’s manor, university caverns and eventually discover that Charles Cavanaugh, one of the chancellors, is responsible for these dark deeds and worse, has allies.  Part of this strains credibility though as it’s difficult to imagine that there would be organized and intelligent monsters lurking in the tunnels under the campus, especially large and open tunnels.  In such a case, it might almost work better as a Call of Cthulhu module as such tunnel systems under schools are often packed with machinery and equipment that provides numerous hiding places for such monsters. The creator of these creatures, the chancellor, Charles Cavanaugh, is no fool though and as a matter of fact, is the head of the department and is well-armed and equipped to deal with the party.  The last encounter will more than make up to hack and slashers their desire to kill as they’ll face not only the professor’s minions and his own magical might, but also the strength of his allies, another wizard student and a hired assassin.  In addition to the adventure itself, the book includes several new magic items, monsters, and a new core class, the Mystic.  One of the stranger new magic items, the Bag of Arms, holds undead arms that are able to animate and use the abilities that the possessor had in life.  For example, here are monk arms that are able to use flurry of blows and stunning attacks as well as utilize evasion and the feats that the monks possessed in life.The mystic core class though, is a full 20 level class that must be lawful in alignment.  These divine spell casters gain special abilities that pertain to prophecy and portents.  In many ways, the mystic is similar to the monk in that they do not use armor, but do gain armor class bonus as they go up in level in addition to adding their Charisma bonus to AC due to a connection with the divine.Of course the main new monster, the nightling, is also fully statted out for the adventure.  One of the worse things about the creatures is their ability to spread the disease.  Those so affected become nightlings themselves.The module boosts over twenty pages of detail on the NPCs within the adventure.  One of the things I didn’t like though was that it didn’t provide stats for all the characters, only those that the party was likely to come into conflict with. The NPCs though make for excellent material for GMs who decide to use the setting after the adventure as there are many personality types that the players can encounter.The art ranges from okay to great with some evocative illustrations done by Brian Figure and Chad Sergesketter.  The maps are solid and easy to use.  The adventure is laid out in standard two column format with all d20 mechanical information in gray text to show that it is OGC.  Internal covers are not used and the OGC itself takes up less than a page.  Editing is fairly good with the biggest gaff I caught being the recommended level.  On the back, it’s recommended for party members of 6th-8th level and inside, for 4th-6th level characters.  While it’s possible that lower level characters will survive the last fight, they’ll be bloodied and have friends to mourn while 8th level characters may respect the fight but not be challenged enough unless the GM adds some other goodies to the encounter.If you’re looking for a game with a heavy emphasis on role-playing than Unhallowed Halls is for you.</blockquote>

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