Visions 1: The Pumpkin Patch

[Keeper of Secrets]

Patrick Younts is quickly becoming one of my favorite independent authors. Prior work of his include Athenaeum Arcane: A Score of Malevolent Special Abilities and Forgotten Archetypes 1: The Gunslinger, both of which are excellent products. His recent offering, The Pumpkin Patch is certainly no disappointment.

The Pumpkin Patch is a 22 page PDF that is a great addition for anyone interested in running a game with some eerie themes, right out of Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Certainly this may be more appropriate for some one-shots, specifically right around Halloween but there is enough information in here to certainly justify purchasing it. At $3.50, it is more than worth it.

Here’s what you get: a variety of pumpkin themed items (yes, I said ‘pumpkin themed’) and their description in D&D terms, set up like magic items. Next are a variety of pumpkin themed spells and monsters. Finally we are treated to Jack O’ The Lantern, the personification of Halloween. Essentially Jack is described as a sinister greater fey and as some eerie entity I can envision terrorizing the countryside, giving villagers good reason to shutter their doors and windows at night during the appropriate holiday (ample room is given to account for a fantasy setting that may not actually have ‘Halloween’).

Certainly the pumpkin themed items, magic and monsters may put some people off as being somewhat corny (or any other farm related reference you care for) but make no mistake, the material is well thought out, certainly useful and if used properly can make for a great set of adventures in any rural setting, especially if the GM wants to make some kind of adventure reminiscent of Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow.

Jack’s background is great, encompassing much of the same style as American legends from upstate New York and New England in the 1600’s and 1700’s, with the same feel as The Devil and Daniel Webster. Jack, while human, is described as something of a cheat, a scoundrel and a ruffian who manages to trick The Devil. While he is certainly not as charming as ‘Johnnie’ from the music classic The Devil Went Down to Georgia, he is certainly as effective in the end. It certainly makes for some fun and captivating reading.

Overall, The Pumpkin Patch is great holiday fun. You’ll enjoy it. Your players will enjoy it. It is a great little product for anyone wishing to have some Halloween fun with his or her gaming group

I give it a 4 out of 5.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Visions 1: The Pumpkin Patch, a 22-page PDF by Patrick Younts, is a grab bag of new spells, new monsters, new magic items and new personalities, all themed around the pumpkin, and more specifically, the jack o’ lantern. You’ll see pumpkins that transform into carriages, spirit haunted jack o’ lanterns who hunt beneath the starless night, fairies who wear the heads of leering gourds, and Sir Crow, the King of Crows, a pumpkin knight who steals children from their homes at the behest of his master, Old Man Wicker. You’ll even be introduced to Jack o’ the Lantern, who in real world folklore is the inventor and namesake of the jack o’ lantern.

 

[Crothian]

Pumpkin Patch

One of the traditions of gamers is the famed Halloween game. Not every one does it but it can be a lot of fun and offer something different from the typical session. There are few products though that really enhances these types of games. Ravenloft has been known as the setting of choice for a more horror flavor and there have been a few companies that have placed out other books that work more on a horror level. Pumpkin Patch is one such book and while it is not pure horror it defiantly will take some traditional ideas and bring them into the RPG.

The Pumpkin Patch is the first in a line of books called Visions. As of the writing of this review there are three books in the line. They are all written by Patrick Younts, an author who has proven time and time again that he has a good grasp on the system both from a rules aspect and in creativity. I think his best book to date is Quintessential Sorcerer, but truthfully I have yet to be disappointed by him. The Pumpkin Patch is a PDF book that is a little under three megs in size. It is put out by Philip Reed’s Ronin Arts. If you are not aware of Ronin Arts, you really need to be. They have about two hundred PDFs released now and are one of the leaders in the PDF industry.

The PDF is nicely laid out and really looks good. But it does have thick gray borders that can make it a pain on a printer’s ink. There is very little art in the book but what is there is good and fitting. The cover is really cool looking and a bit creepy. I really like the use of the over all red and the shadowing in it. The PDF is only twenty two pages long but well book marked. It is very easy to find things in it.

The book has a nice overall pumpkin theme. One of the first things it does is provide a simple rule for having jack o lanterns at the doors and windows of abode. Their purpose is to frighten off bad spirits and while they are not greatly effective it at least establishes a use for them in game and in the rules. They can also be used to aid in turning certain types of undead.

There are three pumpkin themed items. The first is a bag of seeds that can be used to make pumpkin bombs which are a new spell or create a tangle patch which is another new spell. It has a limited number of seeds though. The next item is the pumpkin carriage. While it fits the theme it brings on memories of singing mice and fairy god mothers. The last item is a Spirit Lantern, which is a Jack o Lantern that has magical abilities to help protect against evil and undead.

There area few spells here but it also reminds me of a point I have not made. A lot of the effects and targets are evil fey as well as the evil undead. I really like that the fey were included as targets even though there is not a lot about evil fey written up in D&D. This book does have some Fey creatures in it though. The first spell is Lantern Eyes and it is used to frighten off evil fey and undead. Next is pumpkin bomb that turns pumpkins into lethal projectiles. And the final one is Tangle Patch and it causes Pumpkin vines to grow and grapple targets.

The monsters are very rich in flavor. The first creature is the Lantern Cap. It is a hunter of creature’s heads and strikes at cross roads and other places well traveled. The description of this evil fey is very good and it is a good challenge that can also be creepy. There are some editing problems in it. For instance the fire breath has one save for _ damage. I assume that should be half but it is not in the book. The Pumpkin head has hit points separate from the body but again it just says _ and again I’ll assume half but this really needs to be fixed. Other then those two problems the creature is really well done.

The real monster of the book is Jack O’ The Lantern. This creature is a very powerful Fey that is very well described and ready to be used. He is creepy and offers a challenge a bit different from what players should expect. There is a greater fey template as well as a Gourd Guardian creature.

The book really does something with pumpkins that I was not expecting. This might be the best thing to happen to them since pumpkin pie. It is rich in flavor, the book not the pie. It offers some new ideas on how to bring some quintessential Halloween themes into a campaign.

 

[prodigyxss]

The Pumpkin Patch

Visions 1 The Pumpkin Patch

The Pumpkin Patch is the first in a line of sourcebooks by Arcane Runes Press dealing with folklore and legends that we have known our whole life and integrating it into the d20 system. The Pumpkin Patch would be a good purchased pdf if you want to know about the folklore of the jack o lantern and want to know how it came to be called that or if you are running or going to be running a horror oriented campaign.

Like the other visions books they are written by Patrick Younts. He has never disappointed me in the past with his work and hasnt this time either with his knowledge of the d20 system and his writing. This pdf is in black and white containing only 22 pages, but all of those 22 pages are well written and stick with the theme of the pumpkin. The cover is really well done and is pretty creepy to look at as well. Besides art though, there are only two other pieces of art to look at which are simple and easy on the eye, but arent as good as the cover art.

The pdf starts out on a section showing us how jack o lanterns that are set on either doors or windows affect and frighten bad spirits, and can also aid a cleric on turning undead spirits.

Next it introduces three new pumpkin items. First is the bag of seeds, which contains limited pumpkin seeds that can be thrown as either a exploding pumpkin bomb which is also a spell or can be thrown on the ground which creates pumpkin vines which is another spell. Next is the pumpkin carriage, which is a carriage suited for a maximum of 6 people and can move on its own for a certain amount of time. Lastly there is the spirit lantern, which is a jack o lantern which help protect you against fey,spirits, and undead and grants you the ability to turn such creatures.

The next section contains 3 new pumpkin themed spells. The first is lantern eyes which frightens evil fey and undead causing them to flee away from you. The second is pumpkin bomb which either turns pumpkins into lethal projectiles or explosive bombs. The third spell is tangle patch which creates pumpkin vines to grapple opponets.

The next section details two new pumpkin themed monsters of course. The first is Lantern Cap which is a fairy whith a jack o lantern as a head. It loves to torment his victims by first scaring the crap out of them and stalking them and then goes in for the attack. Its description and combat section is very well written. The other monster is the Guardian Gourd which is a nonmovable patch of red pumpkins usually summoned by farmers to help guard against intruders or monsters.

The best of the pdf has to be the section on Jack o' the Lantern. This section tells of the story of him and how jack o lanterns were named after him as well as why they affect bad spirits and fey. The section also includes his stats. The last part of the book is a well done template for Greater Fey.

Overall I enjoyed this book alot. I was suprised at how well Patrick Younts integrated the pumpkin folklore into the d20 system. I would have rated this a 5, but the bag of seeds and pumpkin bomb spell seems a little overpowered to me and it can be obtained at a very low level.