Sunday, August 21, 2022

The Arcane Gang

A pack of spell-slinging sorcerers, rival adventurers on the hunt for gold and magic. They are a bickering, loosely allied lot.

Members :

 
Avaricia
An albino teifling with burning red eyes, sharp, straight horns and pearly chitin hidden beneath a fashionable coat. She laughs as she cuts men to ribbons with coldly-flaming sword. Hot blooded and arrogant to a fault.
  • Her familiar, Superbia, a fiendish raven, taunts and harries opponents.
  • She carries rune-stamped sidesword and matching parrying dagger.
  • Her spellbook contains : Flesh to Glass, Mind to Glass, Transfer Wound

Zune
A pallid, waxy man. Sickly thin under his oversized red-paneled, black greatcoat. Forever hunched. He is a simulacrum of his original self (burned at the stake for illegal warlockery). Seeks a cure for his degenerating body.
  • Accompanied by a stoic wight bodyguard wielding a massive greatsword.
  • Oft hides his and his compatriots movements or appearance behind illusions.
  • His several spellbooks contain : Pyrotechnics, Knock/Seal, Inflict Hemophilia, Raise Slab, Apport

Netty Lank
Nervous ex-apprentice of a diviner's guild, thrown out into the street in disgrace. Plots childish revenge day and night, but keeps to herself, simmering quietly. Her scrying is roughshod, serviceable. 
  • Her familiar is a cunning weasel well versed in sneaking and thieving.
  • Astral projects from her body, appearing as a ghostly visage, to spy from afar.
  • Her spellbook contains : Reveal False Futures

Verona Harper
Grey-haired, aging, and haughty as the scion of an infamous merchant family can be. She hides her hand tremors underneath fur-lined sleeves. Wholeheartedly believes herself leader, to Avaricia's derision.
  • While stabbed into your spine her iron-nails let her puppeteer you. 
  • Currently she puppets four fishermen, a tailor, and a tiger.
  • Her spellbook contains : Bind Name, Bottle Soul
 
*******

It shouldn't be too hard but points if you can tell from where I distilled these characters from. I found the original versions rather lacking in coherent aesthetics for each, and not even working together in a team full of cracks for players to exploit!! So I revised them.

Friday, August 19, 2022

Tomb Robbers Of The Crystal Frontier - Review

Some might say that the unique setting proves detriment to a dungeons utility as a generic or learning dungeon. This might be the case, however Gus L's Crystal Frontiers setting walks the perfect line between vanilla and weird to make it work.


TOMB ROBBERS OF THE CRYSTAL FRONTIER

Aesthetics

Perhaps my favorite part, its a superb science-fantasy wild west with swaggering duel-happy lansquenets and scurrilous crystal prospector. Its Weird but with all the familiar tropes so that you grasp its essence in an instant And gosh does Gus's art support the vibe. Just look at the cover, its gorgeous. The book as it is slots, somewhat subtly, into the wider world of Gus's 'Fallen Empire' but can be easily used separately.

The fonts are a delight whilst still being readable and the book is stocked with plentiful illustrations that both codify its aesthetic and provide reference for npcs, monsters, locales, and features. 

Also I just adore the colors, their so fun!!

Layout & Tools

The information presentation is, to put it mildly, excellent. 

Room keys are formatted so they lead with a brief at-a-glance description featuring bolded lines for key details. These bolded lines refer to expounded upon sub-sections that describe the key features (being those bolded key details) more closely. It flows smoothly as you read, and makes for easy reference and skimming. Perhaps not as easy skimming as full bullet point keying ala Into the Odd's Iron Coral dungeon, however the denser text offers more detail that would otherwise be left out (or left to be inferred/invented) in the bullet point method.

When it comes to the mapping, all is done by Gus's own hand matching the rest of the books art. Clear and readable but not without style. In addition to the main isometric and top down maps (yes there's both) each 'section' of room keys has a relevant snippet of the main map, handily cutting down on page flipping. More dungeons should do this.

Furthermore, in the appendix a blank player map, and a referee map keyed with treasures and details right on the map are provided. Really this book has bountiful resources for rendering running a breeze. There's even a bevy of turn/torch tracker sheets, faction relation tracker sheets, and so on in the very well stocked appendices.

Content 

Tomb is an excellent learning dungeon, up their along Tomb of the Serpent Kings or Lair of the Lamb and other classics of recent years....

A couple of the traps were hard to parse even on rereading (the prism tomb particularly) however the book goes out of its way to diagram things and includes advice columns for nearly every notable feature explaining the decisions put into it. 
 
All of the dungeons features are highly interact-able and offer great potential for creative problem solving and shenaniganry on player's parts. Furthermore, the dungeon very nicely handles its danger such that players can always accidentally or intentionally trod right into the middle of things yet the more dangerous elements are also secreted further back in the dungeon so work must be put into reaching them.

Speaking of those elements, Tomb Robbers handles its stocking excellently with a mix of dumb monsters, problem solving monsters, faction monsters, boss monsters, and so forth and so on. Consistently providing advice for how to run each.

Truly the advice columns are one of the best part's of the module. They are succinct, clear, and are of immense assistance to new referees running the dungeon. RPG texts that take the time to explaining their reasoning and offer guidance are unfortunately not as common as I wish they were, which makes Tomb Robbers a delight.

In addition to the dungeon proper, the book includes a short section on Scarlet Town, packed with enough hooks and details to easily facilitate play there with no further prep of the Referee's own if they should so choose. Or easily providing a starting off point to expand and explore the Crystal Frontier. 
 
If I'm quite honest Scarlet Town was one of my favorite parts even in proportion to the rest of the dungeon. I'm a sucker for the rough and rowdy pseudo-western setting being sold here.   

And the appendices!! These go the extra leg and expand on magic items, spells, monsters, and setting elements. As well as end-case scenarios for different elements of the dungeon (what if so-and-so monster escapes, and so on). The aforementioned Scarlet Town of course, and the aforementioned referee tools. The crowning section of the whole book. 
 
Also there's a wandering arcanovoric owlbear and I love Gus's take on owlbears so much. Its just great.


THE BROKEN BASTION

The layout here is still quite excellent, though the very long vertical text blocks are tad hard to parse, they break up the long paragraphs in an odd way I find. It gets much better in the keying proper however where the sub-sections break it up.
 
The blocks of advice are killer, as much as they were in Tomb Robbers.

A very dense dungeon, both in information presentation and moving-dungeon-parts for space. Numerous interact-able components are provided for players to mess with, and numerous creatures and monsters to interfere with their exploration. Special movement procedure suggestions. Traps, treasures, and arcane technology.

I confess that I had a trickier time 'holding it all in my head' for this dungeon's content than I did with Tomb Robbers. I cannot place quite why, but I suspect the density of text and features as it related to the layout which was more cramped than with Tomb. However, it is a very flavorful, and well put together dungeon.
 
Like with Tomb, there is an appendix for treasure (of the magical sort) which is very handy. 


THE STAR SPIRE

An excellent lil dungeon, easily slotted into a game when in need of a small one session (or even half-session) dungeon. It would be fairly easy to reskin while keeping its essential character too
 
It does feel a tad sparse when it comes to interact-able elements in the dungeon proper, which makes the module feel more appropriate for players who've gone through a dungeon or two already and have acquired some tools or tricks that they bring with them (or perhaps for a game where they start with some 'problem solving potential' items). However, it is a short dungeon so you can't really hold that against it. 
 
The approaching rival treasure-hunters provide a nice threat and social encounter to be navigated and are, along with the automaton, the real meat of the module in terms of play (I suspect, having yet to run it, I certainly plan to however).

The lil isometric map is wonderful and utilitous. 
 
In terms of layout it has all of the same qualities previously mentioned, but more compact. Also in my copy the lettering seems a bit squished latterly? That could just be a result of my computer however.  


THE BRUJA, THE BEAST, AND THE BARROW

For a short four pages a lot is packed in here. 
 
Firstly, both the palette and dungeon itself are delightful variations from what has previously been provided in the form of a more traditional tomb complex, yet still tying into the rest of the region's wild west science fantasy airs. In particular subtle details are seeded pertaining to the titular bruja and beast that tie into another portion of the setting previously only mentioned in vague snippets. I enjoyed the greek hoplite theming for the tomb, an underutilized aesthetic.
 
The tomb as a whole presents an open ended situation of simple two-sided (or three if you count the players, perhaps four if you count the dungeon itself) factional relations. Marble-Eyes the sorcerer is a compelling npc and a good potential low-level ally to players (and potentially a fun low level antagonist as well). The beast boasts and lies and is formidable opponent but also one who players control if they interact with.

The dungeon itself is the perfect size for a session's worth of play, mostly linear with one branch, decent treasure (including some interesting magic items), and an two-three points of open-ended problem solving.


******
 
And there you have it. Tomb Robbers of the Crystal Frontier can be purchased here along with the rest of Gus's Crystal Frontier products (and much else besides). Gus's current blog can be found here, containing much sagely advice as well as play reports from running Tomb Robbers.
 
(sorry I took so long writing these reviews Gus :p )

Friday, August 5, 2022

Black Books : Extended Catalog


More black books to add to your collection.

Parable Of The Insurer 
The extant copies of a late 17th century chapbook detailing the tale of a scurrilous purveyor of maritime insurance who refuses to pay out to the owner of a "black galley" who lost his cargo fighting "frog-men off the yellow moons." The shipowner then subjects the steadfast insurer to serious of threats and torments till he caves and quits the business to go live as a monk. The exact moral is unclear. 

The Devil's Dress
An account of a Parisian seamstresses dream-voyages to hell at behest of Asmodeus himself in order to fashion him a proper suit for the upcoming "pandemonium." Detailed description is made of various demonic fashions and their manufacture with an ethnographic degree of seriousness.

Fragment I-IX (The Los Angeles Rosetta)
A collection of clay tablets found buried in a backyard during excavations for an outdoor pool. They contain matched writing in archaic Spanish and an unknown language of stamped ovaloid orthography. The text itself is a missive bidding the recipient to burn their ships, hide their tools, and ready the new "converts" for battle. 

The Speculographer's Atlas
An atlas of speculative, imaginary, and mythic cities, their locations, and methods of reaching them. The oldest probable copy is dated to the 11th century under the title "Urbes Secreta" or the Secret Cities, however no know extent copy survives. Over the centuries numerous copied, annotated, and revised editions have emerged, been lost, destroyed, and on. Barring the Neo-Delvers Digest there are few other living occult texts of such extent.While the 1975 edition is easily accessible, prospective occultists are cautioned against it for many of its entries are outdated, false, or mistranslated.

Descent Into The Anti-City
An epistolary novel, told through journal entries and communiques, recounting the expedition of Captain Leroy Fitzgerald of the Unite States Engineer Corp into unidentified structural works beneath an unnamed metropolitan area. The narration eventually devolves into increasingly verbose description of the architectural un-realities. Widely panned by critics for purple prose, obtuseness and abrupt ending. 

How To Build A Dog!
An illustrated children's book, originally published in French, describing in detail how to construct a dog from the "essential saltes of the earth." Listed as suitable for ages 10-12. Briefly hit bestseller lists before being pulled from shelves after parental complaints. 

Snead's 110 
A list of 110 esoteric books for auction, reproduction, or print from the infamous Snead's of London. It has been reprinted numerous times since the 1781 fire which killed Mister Snead and subsequently ended the firm. Lost listings such as "The Vicar's Methods" are commonly hunted for and the subject of legend in occult book circles. 

The Ballistic Gospel
A heretical manuscript compelled from the journal of a 16th century Spanish artilleryman which elevates Saint Barbara from martyr to the true aspect of god. It foretells an apocalypse to come with weapons undreamt of and "mighty rockets which shall unleash dreadful ever-burning balefire." A fairly standard pre-modern prophetization of nuclear war.