Vanuslux
Explorer
The Indomitable Fire Forest of Innenotdar (IFFoI) is the second adventure in the War of the Burning Sky Campaign Saga, which is a 12 part series of adventures designed to take characters from 1st level to 20th level. The characters should be 3rd level entering this installment. The download included both color and b&w versions of the 68-page adventure, as well as an RTF file of combat stats and a PDF of four maps, three of which have unlabeled versions.
Presentation - The cover art by John McSweeney is quite good and is a great representation of the adventure. The interior art is competent, but none of it really jumps out as great, except maybe Rick Hershey's piece on page 43. The cartography is pretty good.
Content - The contents of the adventure are an introduction, the adventure itself presented in three acts and a conclusion, and four appendices.
The adventure itself is, of course, the most important part of the product and the first noteworthy thing about IFFoI is its setting. When they call it a fire forest, they're not being metaphorical. The adventure takes place in a forest that is kept ever ablaze by magic and it's the PCs challenge to get from one end of it to the other alive. It's certainly a unique setting and one used to very good effect in the adventure.
It's not the fire they have to worry about so much, as they are given plenty of potions to help them endure the heat, but rather the various inhabitants of the fire forest who seek to use the PCs to their own ends. The cast of players include a bearded devil that has tracked the PCs into the forest, two different dream-spawned entities called trillith (one of which, called Indomitability, is what keeps the fires of the forest from dying, trapped by a hero's sword and a magic song), a race of fey who have been suffering in the flames of Innenotdar while maintaining the song that keeps the trillith trapped (who have among them those who want to set the trillith free so their own agony can end), a fire dryad, and a hag. The adventure weaves a tangled web of deception and any of these could be allies or enemies to the PCs based on the decisions they make and the "right" decisions won't always be obvious.
For all it's intrigue, though, the adventure presents it all in a straight forward enough manner that most DMs shouldn't have any trouble keeping it sorted out and giving the PCs as much information as they need so long as they bother to look before leaping. If the PCs really want to just barrel through without thinking things through, they can still make it through to the other end of the adventure alive but in doing so would likely leave a lot of damage in their wake. If the PCs want to do more than just survive and make it through the forest...if they actually want to do something good and heroic...then they're going to need to think things through and make some hard decisions.
I'm hard pressed to find anything to criticize about this adventure. It manages to be non-linear and clearly focused at the same time. It has interesting and well developed NPCs. The story is fairly original and the setting is one most players won't have ever taken PCs into before. Even as part of a campaign saga, it stands alone fairly well as to run it as a stand alone the DM only needs to manufacture a reason for the PCs to need to get through the forest. The only thing I can say negative about it is that some may find it a bit low on action. Players who love role-playing will love it more than those who would rather just trudge through dungeons killing things and taking their stuff, but for those that love action there is still some great combat set pieces within the adventure.
The first appendix details more about the fire forest, including some terrain hazards unique to it and a template for those living things that are "infected" by the magic of the fire forest.
The second appendix details the fey race called the seela which plays an important role in the adventure and the song they sing which keeps Indomitability trapped.
The third appendix is for new magic, which consists of a Lesser Artifact and a single spell (the means for which the PCs are able to survive the heat of the fire forest).
The fourth and final appendix is for stats, including leveled up versions of characters that might still be accompanying the party from the previous adventure in the campaign saga as well as the various NPCs from this adventure.
In Conclusion -
From a role-player's perspective, this is a rather meaty adventure with a great deal of depth and originality and few significant flaws. Those who are mostly in it for the roll of the dice will probably get less out of it but should still have a pretty enjoyable time getting through it, though if you have particularly headstrong players who just want to plow from one end of the forest to the other without getting involved in the machinations of dream-spawned entities or a tortured fey race then it could end up being more of a side-trek than a full adventure. As someone who loves a lot of role-playing potential both as a DM and as a player, I'm going to go ahead and stamp this adventure with a five stars with the disclaimer that more combat focused groups will more likely find it somewhere between a three and a four star adventure.
Presentation - The cover art by John McSweeney is quite good and is a great representation of the adventure. The interior art is competent, but none of it really jumps out as great, except maybe Rick Hershey's piece on page 43. The cartography is pretty good.
Content - The contents of the adventure are an introduction, the adventure itself presented in three acts and a conclusion, and four appendices.
The adventure itself is, of course, the most important part of the product and the first noteworthy thing about IFFoI is its setting. When they call it a fire forest, they're not being metaphorical. The adventure takes place in a forest that is kept ever ablaze by magic and it's the PCs challenge to get from one end of it to the other alive. It's certainly a unique setting and one used to very good effect in the adventure.
It's not the fire they have to worry about so much, as they are given plenty of potions to help them endure the heat, but rather the various inhabitants of the fire forest who seek to use the PCs to their own ends. The cast of players include a bearded devil that has tracked the PCs into the forest, two different dream-spawned entities called trillith (one of which, called Indomitability, is what keeps the fires of the forest from dying, trapped by a hero's sword and a magic song), a race of fey who have been suffering in the flames of Innenotdar while maintaining the song that keeps the trillith trapped (who have among them those who want to set the trillith free so their own agony can end), a fire dryad, and a hag. The adventure weaves a tangled web of deception and any of these could be allies or enemies to the PCs based on the decisions they make and the "right" decisions won't always be obvious.
For all it's intrigue, though, the adventure presents it all in a straight forward enough manner that most DMs shouldn't have any trouble keeping it sorted out and giving the PCs as much information as they need so long as they bother to look before leaping. If the PCs really want to just barrel through without thinking things through, they can still make it through to the other end of the adventure alive but in doing so would likely leave a lot of damage in their wake. If the PCs want to do more than just survive and make it through the forest...if they actually want to do something good and heroic...then they're going to need to think things through and make some hard decisions.
I'm hard pressed to find anything to criticize about this adventure. It manages to be non-linear and clearly focused at the same time. It has interesting and well developed NPCs. The story is fairly original and the setting is one most players won't have ever taken PCs into before. Even as part of a campaign saga, it stands alone fairly well as to run it as a stand alone the DM only needs to manufacture a reason for the PCs to need to get through the forest. The only thing I can say negative about it is that some may find it a bit low on action. Players who love role-playing will love it more than those who would rather just trudge through dungeons killing things and taking their stuff, but for those that love action there is still some great combat set pieces within the adventure.
The first appendix details more about the fire forest, including some terrain hazards unique to it and a template for those living things that are "infected" by the magic of the fire forest.
The second appendix details the fey race called the seela which plays an important role in the adventure and the song they sing which keeps Indomitability trapped.
The third appendix is for new magic, which consists of a Lesser Artifact and a single spell (the means for which the PCs are able to survive the heat of the fire forest).
The fourth and final appendix is for stats, including leveled up versions of characters that might still be accompanying the party from the previous adventure in the campaign saga as well as the various NPCs from this adventure.
In Conclusion -
From a role-player's perspective, this is a rather meaty adventure with a great deal of depth and originality and few significant flaws. Those who are mostly in it for the roll of the dice will probably get less out of it but should still have a pretty enjoyable time getting through it, though if you have particularly headstrong players who just want to plow from one end of the forest to the other without getting involved in the machinations of dream-spawned entities or a tortured fey race then it could end up being more of a side-trek than a full adventure. As someone who loves a lot of role-playing potential both as a DM and as a player, I'm going to go ahead and stamp this adventure with a five stars with the disclaimer that more combat focused groups will more likely find it somewhere between a three and a four star adventure.
