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Message: <blockquote data-quote="trancejeremy" data-source="post: 2011077" data-attributes="member: 924">Note: This was largely written from an advance copy and the use of my precognitive powers, but now I have have a physical copy. The Village of Oester is the follow up to the excellent and well received d20 module (or "adventure setting") "The Hamlet of Thumble" from Open World Press. While it's not directly related, it is set in the same world as Thumble, and if you have Thumble, you can see the adventure locations on the region map in it. Actually, in many ways, it's the opposite of Thumble in most respects.While Thumble was almost really a sourcebook for the hamlet itself, Oester is almost entirely an adventure. While part of a town is detailed (fairly well, too), it's actually of a place called Mullikin. Oester has largely been abandoned because of a horrible curse, and that is actually the whole basis of the adventure. The PCs hear about the problems in Oester (in general terms) and presumably will investigate. (This is one of the weaker aspects - trying to get the PCs involved).The trip to Mullikin (which is the largest town on the way to Oester) is fairly uneventful, though they will have some fun in the town itself. After the shenanigans there (which I probably liked the best), the PCs will presumably go on the road to Oester. They will have a somewhat strange trip, meeting a very strange barbarian, among others. Not much is left of Oester in terms of population, much of the adventure is really set in the nearby "Tower of Vernest" (which actually probably would have been a better name for the module).The adventure is basically two parts - getting to the tower, and the tower itself. The latter is a fairly straight forward dungeon crawl (or tower crawl in this case), but the first part of the adventure has a lot of role-playing potential. The strongpoints of Thumble also exist in this - the NPCs are very well detailed, both in terms of stats, and more importantly, in terms of personality and motivation. For the most part, they seem real. There are also a lot of side quests in Oester, though some will probably be too tough for the PCs.It's somewhat dark in tone, though nothing really horrible. It's really pretty much like Resident Evil. The creepiest parts are in a side encounter (though I imagine Troy McClure would find it quite enjoyable), which is depicted on the cover. I actually had a nightmare about one of those, though it happened after seeing something similar on Sealab 2021.Some of the NPCs the players will meet are also delightfully weird - one of them seems straight out of a 70s movie (one of those that are simply about travelling from place to place, meeting weird people). The ending is also a bit unexpected. While your players can just kill the bad guy, that's not the optimal ending. The optimal one also has something of a twist to it. The optimal ending also provides a good spring board for the PCs to own their own stronghold/town.The maps are absolutely fantastic. One of the downsides of the modern computer age is that it's quick and easy to make maps - while it's fine for amateurs, many RPG companies (especially d20) also went the computer program route. This often results in very sterile and artificial looking maps, at least I think it does. These maps look like they are out of a fantasy novel from the 70s or early 80s. So maybe there is a nostalgia factor. The art is also pretty good. Not all the art was available when I got the manuscript, and now that I see it all in the final version, I have to say, it's actually excellent. And there is a lot of it. I was pleasantly surprised at how well Thumble turned out, layout wise, as the Mystic Eye people aren't great at it, but Oester is even better. All in all, it's an enjoyable module - it combines all the things I like - a bit of a mystery, killing zombies, roleplaying with weird NPCs. Still, it's not perfect - I found the timeline a bit confusing. It's not clear exactly when the tower was abandoned. It seems like at least 3-4 generations ago, yet the tower has prisoners still in it from then. Granted, they are from long lived species, but I would think getting food was a bit problematic, since they are chained to the wall. It's also not that original in plot. The plot (something turns the people of a village into monsters) is actually is fairly close to that of "Unhallowed Halls" and a couple other d20 modules I have. (Why is it that people always get turned into something awful? If I were a villain, wouldn't it be much more fun to turn them into supermodels or something?)Other than the timeline vagueness, the adventure is well written, and things are made easy for the GM. There are extensive random encounters (including not just type, but what they are doing), info on the weather, and the insight into the NPCs personality really helps a lot. The encounters are also generally scaled for a fairly wide range of party levels.There's an option to play evil PCs, but that scenario involves them being ghouls. While I'm sure it would be even more angst ridden than being a vampire, I think most people would not want to play ghouls.Like most undead heavy modules, it is perhaps a bit too weighted towards Clerics/Paladins. If you have them, it will likely be easy (or easier), if you don't, it will be difficult. And like a lot of adventures, it won't be terribly useful after you've run it. Thumble was a great value because you could use Thumble itself as a village in your game, or use them in some other game on short notice (like I did with Stargate, I just changed the halflings to Samoans). Still, quite a bit of Mullikin is described (around 15 locations), and even more is shown on the map of it (around 50). And with a little amount of work, it would make a decent modern day or Call of Cthulhu scenario. B++ (I originally gave it a B+, but as it looks better than I expect, I'll give it a B++ and round it up to a 5 here, though it's more 4.5 ish)Also, I did get to run it, and have incorporated the whole region into my home brew world. And one of the NPCs from this (Birna the Barbarian) is now one of my favorite recurring NPCs.</blockquote>

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