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Raiders of the Serpent Sea - Third Party 5E Review
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<blockquote data-quote="Sparky McDibben" data-source="post: 9203731" data-attributes="member: 7041430"><p>Good to know!</p><p></p><p>Alright, let's hop into Chapter 1: Into the Unknown.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://media.tenor.com/LbaVZBTP-98AAAAC/frozen-elsa.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p> <p style="text-align: center"><em>Look, it was the most Nordic-themed Disney reference I could find, alright?</em></p><p></p><p>The rough outline here is that the heroes have been hired to an expedition led by a guy named Hrolf. This expedition, set out by the volv (seers, a sort of supra-clan organization), is going to investigate a tower. This tower is notable because a bunch of the volv have been dreaming about it, and they want the expedition to figure out why.</p><p></p><p>While there, they're attacked by other raiders, the Whar clan, who burn all their longships. The PCs (and Hrolf) trek across the Fanged Sands to Nowhere, a community of outcast raiders, where they need to get a ship. Once they have a ship, they head back out on the Serpent Sea.</p><p></p><p>That's pretty easy, right? Can't be much going on here.</p><p></p><p>Well, it's 37 pages, so buckle up.</p><p></p><p>The chapter starts with the PCs on the ship, with Hrolf, the Hero of a Hundred Raids. Hrolf has carved out his own eye as an offering to the Well of Wisdom. Notably, his own Wisdom score is a 14, according to his statblock, so I'm guessing he wasn't wise enough to ask for a <em>ring of three wishes</em> when he made the sacrifice. At any rate, he has a quarter-page write-up in the NPC section that I won't subject you to, because they really could have boiled it down to "What happens when you cross the most Viking-y Viking to ever go a-viking with Han Solo."</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER="BioWare Trope Alert"]</p><p>DMPC Mentor! Much like Nihlus in <em>Mass Effect,</em> or Duncan in <em>Dragon Age</em>, Hrolf is a powerful companion to whom Bad Things happen later on. The DMPC mentor is responsible for filling in some gaps through dialogue, explaining the early parts of the plot the players, and pointing them to early, vital clues if they miss them. Fortunately, they almost always end up dead.</p><p>[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>We don't really get many scenes with Hrolf in the opening, which sucks because he's going to be important later. There's some optional NPCs we can RP with too, but they all die in like two pages, so we're not going to bother with them. Instead, the adventure drops the PCs in, tells the DM to let them RP for a bit on this longship, and then a storm hits! Hooray! Our first challenge for these 1st-level characters will be non-combat but action-oriented! That's awesome, and good low-level design.</p><p></p><p>Basically, if you're not tied to the ship, you have to make a DC 12 Acrobatics check to avoid getting hurled into the sea. But the raid banner comes loose from the ship and starts flying away. Hrolf exhorts the PCs to catch it - which they can attempt, but doing so puts them at disadvantage for the Acrobatics check. This gives the PCs a choice, and lets them make an early name for themselves, but doing so almost certainly puts them in the drink for a bit, and there's no real mechanics given for getting out of the drink.</p><p></p><p>The deal with the raid banner is that it puts them under the protection of the volv, those supra-clan seers I mentioned earlier. Nobody screws with the volv, because you'll get hella-nasty cursed. Without the banner, the expedition is in peril from other raiding clans.</p><p></p><p>Next up there's a quick interlude where two expedition members try to murder Hrolf. They've been mind-wiped by someone, but remember being paid. This feels unnecessary to me - the deaths of the crew at the tower is a big emotional beat that should motivate vengeance, and this encounter weakens that by casting doubt on the expedition's unity. After all, if some members of the expedition might be enemies, losing them isn't such a big deal, is it?</p><p></p><p>Next, though, we get to this tower! Yippee, the plot advances! However, I have a brief rant about map design. Here's the map for this dungeon:</p><p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/WBxPkh5.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>My problems here:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Why is everything so brown?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Where the hell are the exits from Area 2? If you read the key, you'll know, but otherwise it looks like a dead end</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Why are there no windows?</li> </ul><p><strong><em>Please stop using photorealistic map design.</em></strong> It doesn't convey the information that I want conveyed (how big is the room, where are the exits, and where is the cool stuff), and instead conveys information I would prefer to make up for myself (the color scheme, etc). Also, if you're going to have the PCs move out of sync with the levels (that is, the adventure expects the PCs will start on level 1, go to level 2, come back to level 1, etc.), a side cut-away view is useful.</p><p></p><p>Rant complete; moving on.</p><p></p><p>The initial arrival is mostly conveyed in boxed text. As a DM, I mostly skip boxed text, so this adventure has been difficult for me to grok. There's also the problem of unnecessary information. For example, the adventure states: "There are no signs of the beautiful gardens and ponds that once graced the grounds of Mirgal’s tower." At the risk of sounding pedantic...why the hell include that line? If it's not there and will never come up, what does it add?</p><p></p><p>So, about that exit from area 2 - it's skill-locked behind a DC 12 Investigation check. This raises the question of: what happens if nobody passes the check? The adventure is mum about that, and just sort of blithely assumes everyone will make it. Do NOT put necessary clues to something behind a skill check. Bad designers!</p><p></p><p>Hrolf stays in the entrance as he and some others are shifting rocks around to open up the first floor, but he encourages the PCs to explore the rest of the dungeon. Good job, Hrolf! Get these schlubs to find all the traps for you!</p><p></p><p>Next up - some wicker rats! The "wickers" are basically a creature type in this world that are constructs. They can look like anything, and are sort of just here because the tower's former owner specialized in making them. There's also a young girl! The young girl has no idea why she was here, <s>having been abducted by aliens</s> er....she saw bright lights that flared and took her. Definitely not aliens. Certainly not.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, the text informs us that this girl is named Siddhe, and that she's really important, but not till Chapter 3, so "encourage the heroes to keep her close."</p><p></p><p>Look, I don't know about you guys, but my players are probably going to assume this kid is a demon or something and either stick to her like glue to avoid getting charmed, or they're going to abandon her in the wastes. Wish me luck!</p><p></p><p>The rest of the dungeon is mostly OK, with the PCs having to avoid mechanical traps (in the centuries-old buried tower that belonged to a mage, who apparently trapped the hell out of his staircases), and acquire bits of information, several of which are meaningful to the volv later on. Unfortunately, the whole thing is mostly devoid of meaningful navigational choices - it's mostly just a series of rooms. The stuff in the rooms is interesting, I suppose, but I feel less like you're exploring and more like you're playing one of those "find the clue" games.</p><p></p><p>After this, the heroes rejoin Hrolf right as the Whar clan attacks! Hrolf has gotten into a fight with some other wicker constructs, and has been badly wounded (this is reflected in his statblock, which is still a beefy CR 4), but races with the PCs back to the shore. Once they get back to the shore, however, "Siddhe will swiftly call Hrolf’s attention to the carnage surrounding them and he bellows orders to his remaining warriors to form a <strong>shield wall.</strong>"</p><p></p><p>Can I ask why the literal child is pointing out to the "Hero of a Hundred Raids" that they're under attack? Young miss, this is Hrolf D. Viking, <em>Esquire!</em> If anybody knows what an attack looks like, it should be him!</p><p></p><p>Also, good luck finding the stats for a shield wall - it's not in the monster section (Appendix E), but in the raiding section (Appendix A). I suppose this is a good time to point out that this book doesn't have an index? Thank God for Ctrl + F.</p><p></p><p>But anyway, this big set piece battle unfolds. Hrolf and the rest of the raiders, plus the PCs on one side, and 7 raid archers, 4 raiders, and a raid druid on the other.</p><p></p><p>The enemies fight through the other raiders, and only then target Hrolf and the PCs. Ideally, the adventure states, only Hrolf and the PCs should survive.</p><p></p><p>And then the adventure says:</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://media.tenor.com/1O37M2N4eroAAAAd/let-them.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p> <p style="text-align: center"><em>Great advice from Ken Watanabe, bad advice from an adventure</em></p> <p style="text-align: center"></p><p>OK, but...this is the dumbest possible way to run this fight. You, the DM, are going to be embroiled in a ton of hot NPC-on-NPC action, while the PCs look on, patiently wondering why they gave up their Saturday to do this.</p><p></p><p>The desired end state is: the Whar clan has fled, only the PCs and Hrolf have survived, the longships are burned, and the PCs feel a sense of ownership over the victory.</p><p></p><p>I hate to waste y'all's time, but I want to do a brief tangent on how to rework this:</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER="How I Would Do It"]</p><p>We need the PCs to take center stage here in a big way without drawing a lot of fire. So instead of the raiders all showing up on shore at once, the druid emerges in dire wolf form (which is trippy, because no one in Grimnir has seen a wolf) and howls a challenge. Hrolf accepts, banging his shield, but tells the PCs that aboard his ship are some fire arrows of his own - if they can get there and string his massive war bow, they can start setting the attacking vessel alight, and maybe force it to withdraw.</p><p></p><p>As Hrolf moves to engage the wolf, a spear erupts from the back of one of the allied raiders - a group of four enemy raiders have flanked them, and the allies are getting swarmed! Siddhe is screaming as she watches men cut down before her!</p><p></p><p>Now the PCs have two goals they can't do sequentially. If they engage these other raiders (suitable for any martial characters), the longships will be completely engulfed in flames by the time they're done. If they opt to get the fire arrows first, Siddhe will get kidnapped!</p><p></p><p>Hrolf gets wrecked by the end of round 4 with the dire wolf druid, who winds up ripping off Hrolf's leg at the knee. This is important because now Hrolf can't easily solve combat encounters for the PCs in later chapters. It also gives the PCs a nice little arc to get Hrolf some prosthetics or powerful healing (which could be found with the Bad Guys!).</p><p>[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>At any rate, the PCs ultimately find themselves alone with just Hrolf, Siddhe, and some corpses. Hrolf asks the PCs to help him burn the corpses, and the PCs get to see three valkyries show up (the book uses the George R.R. Martin Spelling Trick of changing like one vowel in several words, so it's presented as "valkry").</p><p></p><p>Hrolf insists that no rescue is coming, and insists on heading overland toward the bandit community of Nowhere. Assuming the PCs come along, the next several days are them walking to Nowhere. There is exactly one fight and some treasure, coupled with some environmental obstacles. It's not badly done.</p><p></p><p>After that, we get to Nowhere, and look! It's another...</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER="BioWare Trope Alert!"]</p><p>Town Full of Villains. Much like Omega from <em>Mass Effect 2,</em> or the Undercity in <em>Dragon Age 2,</em> this is a town full of some minor side quests, a big hurdle the PCs have to overcome, and a bunch of foreshadowing about the next phase of the adventure. It's an effective trope, and the adventure handles it well.</p><p>[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>Nowhere takes up 20 whole pages all on its own. The PCs main goal is to get a ship, and there are at least three different ways of getting one:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Manipulate one of the three raider-captains into a drinking contest, with their ship as the prize</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Steal a ship</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Buy a ship (least likely)</li> </ul><p>The route the adventure clearly expects is that the PCs will manipulate a raider captain into a drinking contest and emerge victorious.</p><p></p><p>This is, that I can find, never spelled out as an option for the PCs. You pick up a bunch of information about the various raiders around town, but it's a helluva leap from "Lurx is in love with a woman at a colony they just raided" to "Let's use Lurx's lover as leverage to trick them into a drinking contest to win their ship!" Also, the rules for how to run a drinking game are not in this book, but in the (you guessed it!) GM's Reference. Guys, c'mon.</p><p></p><p>Also, what the hell are the heroes staking as a prize? They've got some treasure but not much, probably less than 1,000 gp. My guess is that the PCs will hear about the raider captains' troubles, and then go to them and offer to help them out in return for a ship. I'd recommend coming up with some side-quest options for each captain, which shouldn't be difficult. One of them is getting old and is worried about his dad, one of them wants to help their lover's colony, and one of them murdered their brother. Easy-peasy.</p><p></p><p>Stealing a ship has a handy little structure spelled out that's mostly combat, but some of the random encounters actually help the heroes, which is a fun bit. The adventure spells out several consequences to that, which are outstanding!</p><p></p><p>Buying a ship costs 6,500 gp, which is functionally impossible, although there is a wonderful sidebar on leasing the ship. Yes. Apparently that's an option. Who knew?</p><p></p><p>But aside from the ship drama, there's a lot to do in this town. There are 13 locations spelled out, including a Runethrower (fortune-teller) who gives the PCs crucial information on their Epic Goals! There's an interesting tension between the underclass and the jarl, which could be very interesting for politically-minded PCs, and options for how the friends the PCs make in town can influence their crew for the ship!</p><p></p><p>Overall, it's well done! There's like one thing that I cannot stand about this section, though, and it's these:</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/nJQBrbg.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p> <p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/rxP25WW.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>Now, you're probably thinking, "Oh, crap, Sparky's about to go off on another tangent about map design again." Well you would be wrong, <em>Dan.</em> In fact, I am upset for a completely unrelated issue, my dislike for photorealistic maps having been well-established. I'm upset because these are full-page maps for a location in which, as far as I can tell, <em>there is never a need for a map.</em> Nothing but roleplaying happens here. You couldn't have spent this page space on something useful, design team?? Why are these here?</p><p></p><p>Alright, regardless, the PCs eventually get a ship and sail off onto the Serpent Sea! Well, not quite. Those Whar raiders who ambushed them at the tower decide that they've had one ambush, yes, but what about a <em>second</em> ambush! Truly, these guys are masterfully cunning.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, the PCs fight their way out, and get a raven from the volv, who are like, "Hey, those Whar guys? They live here." The adventure adds a location to the PCs map, which Hrolf D. Viking, Esquire, asks the PCs to check out.</p><p></p><p>Oh, you remember that kid, Siddhe? Well, if the PCs try to leave them behind, they sneak aboard. Congratulate the PCs on this <em>other</em> DMPC they've acquired!</p><p></p><p>My overall feelings about Chapter 1 are mixed. Layout issues continue to drag down what could be amazing material, and the poor communication from the text to the players makes pixelbitching a real concern. That being said, there's more than enough awesome here to make it worth your while. I mean, who doesn't want to steal a Viking longship?</p><p></p><p>Next time, friends, we will set sail on the Serpent Sea, and put some raiding in this Raiders of the Serpent Sea campaign!</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://media1.giphy.com/media/ue1GO5swPdORq/200.gif" alt="oh yeah GIF" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p> <p style="text-align: center"><em>President Obama approves this message.</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sparky McDibben, post: 9203731, member: 7041430"] Good to know! Alright, let's hop into Chapter 1: Into the Unknown. [CENTER][IMG]https://media.tenor.com/LbaVZBTP-98AAAAC/frozen-elsa.gif[/IMG] [I]Look, it was the most Nordic-themed Disney reference I could find, alright?[/I][/CENTER] The rough outline here is that the heroes have been hired to an expedition led by a guy named Hrolf. This expedition, set out by the volv (seers, a sort of supra-clan organization), is going to investigate a tower. This tower is notable because a bunch of the volv have been dreaming about it, and they want the expedition to figure out why. While there, they're attacked by other raiders, the Whar clan, who burn all their longships. The PCs (and Hrolf) trek across the Fanged Sands to Nowhere, a community of outcast raiders, where they need to get a ship. Once they have a ship, they head back out on the Serpent Sea. That's pretty easy, right? Can't be much going on here. Well, it's 37 pages, so buckle up. The chapter starts with the PCs on the ship, with Hrolf, the Hero of a Hundred Raids. Hrolf has carved out his own eye as an offering to the Well of Wisdom. Notably, his own Wisdom score is a 14, according to his statblock, so I'm guessing he wasn't wise enough to ask for a [I]ring of three wishes[/I] when he made the sacrifice. At any rate, he has a quarter-page write-up in the NPC section that I won't subject you to, because they really could have boiled it down to "What happens when you cross the most Viking-y Viking to ever go a-viking with Han Solo." [SPOILER="BioWare Trope Alert"] DMPC Mentor! Much like Nihlus in [I]Mass Effect,[/I] or Duncan in [I]Dragon Age[/I], Hrolf is a powerful companion to whom Bad Things happen later on. The DMPC mentor is responsible for filling in some gaps through dialogue, explaining the early parts of the plot the players, and pointing them to early, vital clues if they miss them. Fortunately, they almost always end up dead. [/SPOILER] We don't really get many scenes with Hrolf in the opening, which sucks because he's going to be important later. There's some optional NPCs we can RP with too, but they all die in like two pages, so we're not going to bother with them. Instead, the adventure drops the PCs in, tells the DM to let them RP for a bit on this longship, and then a storm hits! Hooray! Our first challenge for these 1st-level characters will be non-combat but action-oriented! That's awesome, and good low-level design. Basically, if you're not tied to the ship, you have to make a DC 12 Acrobatics check to avoid getting hurled into the sea. But the raid banner comes loose from the ship and starts flying away. Hrolf exhorts the PCs to catch it - which they can attempt, but doing so puts them at disadvantage for the Acrobatics check. This gives the PCs a choice, and lets them make an early name for themselves, but doing so almost certainly puts them in the drink for a bit, and there's no real mechanics given for getting out of the drink. The deal with the raid banner is that it puts them under the protection of the volv, those supra-clan seers I mentioned earlier. Nobody screws with the volv, because you'll get hella-nasty cursed. Without the banner, the expedition is in peril from other raiding clans. Next up there's a quick interlude where two expedition members try to murder Hrolf. They've been mind-wiped by someone, but remember being paid. This feels unnecessary to me - the deaths of the crew at the tower is a big emotional beat that should motivate vengeance, and this encounter weakens that by casting doubt on the expedition's unity. After all, if some members of the expedition might be enemies, losing them isn't such a big deal, is it? Next, though, we get to this tower! Yippee, the plot advances! However, I have a brief rant about map design. Here's the map for this dungeon: [IMG]https://i.imgur.com/WBxPkh5.png[/IMG] My problems here: [LIST] [*]Why is everything so brown? [*]Where the hell are the exits from Area 2? If you read the key, you'll know, but otherwise it looks like a dead end [*]Why are there no windows? [/LIST] [B][I]Please stop using photorealistic map design.[/I][/B] It doesn't convey the information that I want conveyed (how big is the room, where are the exits, and where is the cool stuff), and instead conveys information I would prefer to make up for myself (the color scheme, etc). Also, if you're going to have the PCs move out of sync with the levels (that is, the adventure expects the PCs will start on level 1, go to level 2, come back to level 1, etc.), a side cut-away view is useful. Rant complete; moving on. The initial arrival is mostly conveyed in boxed text. As a DM, I mostly skip boxed text, so this adventure has been difficult for me to grok. There's also the problem of unnecessary information. For example, the adventure states: "There are no signs of the beautiful gardens and ponds that once graced the grounds of Mirgal’s tower." At the risk of sounding pedantic...why the hell include that line? If it's not there and will never come up, what does it add? So, about that exit from area 2 - it's skill-locked behind a DC 12 Investigation check. This raises the question of: what happens if nobody passes the check? The adventure is mum about that, and just sort of blithely assumes everyone will make it. Do NOT put necessary clues to something behind a skill check. Bad designers! Hrolf stays in the entrance as he and some others are shifting rocks around to open up the first floor, but he encourages the PCs to explore the rest of the dungeon. Good job, Hrolf! Get these schlubs to find all the traps for you! Next up - some wicker rats! The "wickers" are basically a creature type in this world that are constructs. They can look like anything, and are sort of just here because the tower's former owner specialized in making them. There's also a young girl! The young girl has no idea why she was here, [S]having been abducted by aliens[/S] er....she saw bright lights that flared and took her. Definitely not aliens. Certainly not. Anyway, the text informs us that this girl is named Siddhe, and that she's really important, but not till Chapter 3, so "encourage the heroes to keep her close." Look, I don't know about you guys, but my players are probably going to assume this kid is a demon or something and either stick to her like glue to avoid getting charmed, or they're going to abandon her in the wastes. Wish me luck! The rest of the dungeon is mostly OK, with the PCs having to avoid mechanical traps (in the centuries-old buried tower that belonged to a mage, who apparently trapped the hell out of his staircases), and acquire bits of information, several of which are meaningful to the volv later on. Unfortunately, the whole thing is mostly devoid of meaningful navigational choices - it's mostly just a series of rooms. The stuff in the rooms is interesting, I suppose, but I feel less like you're exploring and more like you're playing one of those "find the clue" games. After this, the heroes rejoin Hrolf right as the Whar clan attacks! Hrolf has gotten into a fight with some other wicker constructs, and has been badly wounded (this is reflected in his statblock, which is still a beefy CR 4), but races with the PCs back to the shore. Once they get back to the shore, however, "Siddhe will swiftly call Hrolf’s attention to the carnage surrounding them and he bellows orders to his remaining warriors to form a [B]shield wall.[/B]" Can I ask why the literal child is pointing out to the "Hero of a Hundred Raids" that they're under attack? Young miss, this is Hrolf D. Viking, [I]Esquire![/I] If anybody knows what an attack looks like, it should be him! Also, good luck finding the stats for a shield wall - it's not in the monster section (Appendix E), but in the raiding section (Appendix A). I suppose this is a good time to point out that this book doesn't have an index? Thank God for Ctrl + F. But anyway, this big set piece battle unfolds. Hrolf and the rest of the raiders, plus the PCs on one side, and 7 raid archers, 4 raiders, and a raid druid on the other. The enemies fight through the other raiders, and only then target Hrolf and the PCs. Ideally, the adventure states, only Hrolf and the PCs should survive. And then the adventure says: [CENTER][IMG]https://media.tenor.com/1O37M2N4eroAAAAd/let-them.gif[/IMG] [I]Great advice from Ken Watanabe, bad advice from an adventure[/I] [/CENTER] OK, but...this is the dumbest possible way to run this fight. You, the DM, are going to be embroiled in a ton of hot NPC-on-NPC action, while the PCs look on, patiently wondering why they gave up their Saturday to do this. The desired end state is: the Whar clan has fled, only the PCs and Hrolf have survived, the longships are burned, and the PCs feel a sense of ownership over the victory. I hate to waste y'all's time, but I want to do a brief tangent on how to rework this: [SPOILER="How I Would Do It"] We need the PCs to take center stage here in a big way without drawing a lot of fire. So instead of the raiders all showing up on shore at once, the druid emerges in dire wolf form (which is trippy, because no one in Grimnir has seen a wolf) and howls a challenge. Hrolf accepts, banging his shield, but tells the PCs that aboard his ship are some fire arrows of his own - if they can get there and string his massive war bow, they can start setting the attacking vessel alight, and maybe force it to withdraw. As Hrolf moves to engage the wolf, a spear erupts from the back of one of the allied raiders - a group of four enemy raiders have flanked them, and the allies are getting swarmed! Siddhe is screaming as she watches men cut down before her! Now the PCs have two goals they can't do sequentially. If they engage these other raiders (suitable for any martial characters), the longships will be completely engulfed in flames by the time they're done. If they opt to get the fire arrows first, Siddhe will get kidnapped! Hrolf gets wrecked by the end of round 4 with the dire wolf druid, who winds up ripping off Hrolf's leg at the knee. This is important because now Hrolf can't easily solve combat encounters for the PCs in later chapters. It also gives the PCs a nice little arc to get Hrolf some prosthetics or powerful healing (which could be found with the Bad Guys!). [/SPOILER] At any rate, the PCs ultimately find themselves alone with just Hrolf, Siddhe, and some corpses. Hrolf asks the PCs to help him burn the corpses, and the PCs get to see three valkyries show up (the book uses the George R.R. Martin Spelling Trick of changing like one vowel in several words, so it's presented as "valkry"). Hrolf insists that no rescue is coming, and insists on heading overland toward the bandit community of Nowhere. Assuming the PCs come along, the next several days are them walking to Nowhere. There is exactly one fight and some treasure, coupled with some environmental obstacles. It's not badly done. After that, we get to Nowhere, and look! It's another... [SPOILER="BioWare Trope Alert!"] Town Full of Villains. Much like Omega from [I]Mass Effect 2,[/I] or the Undercity in [I]Dragon Age 2,[/I] this is a town full of some minor side quests, a big hurdle the PCs have to overcome, and a bunch of foreshadowing about the next phase of the adventure. It's an effective trope, and the adventure handles it well. [/SPOILER] Nowhere takes up 20 whole pages all on its own. The PCs main goal is to get a ship, and there are at least three different ways of getting one: [LIST] [*]Manipulate one of the three raider-captains into a drinking contest, with their ship as the prize [*]Steal a ship [*]Buy a ship (least likely) [/LIST] The route the adventure clearly expects is that the PCs will manipulate a raider captain into a drinking contest and emerge victorious. This is, that I can find, never spelled out as an option for the PCs. You pick up a bunch of information about the various raiders around town, but it's a helluva leap from "Lurx is in love with a woman at a colony they just raided" to "Let's use Lurx's lover as leverage to trick them into a drinking contest to win their ship!" Also, the rules for how to run a drinking game are not in this book, but in the (you guessed it!) GM's Reference. Guys, c'mon. Also, what the hell are the heroes staking as a prize? They've got some treasure but not much, probably less than 1,000 gp. My guess is that the PCs will hear about the raider captains' troubles, and then go to them and offer to help them out in return for a ship. I'd recommend coming up with some side-quest options for each captain, which shouldn't be difficult. One of them is getting old and is worried about his dad, one of them wants to help their lover's colony, and one of them murdered their brother. Easy-peasy. Stealing a ship has a handy little structure spelled out that's mostly combat, but some of the random encounters actually help the heroes, which is a fun bit. The adventure spells out several consequences to that, which are outstanding! Buying a ship costs 6,500 gp, which is functionally impossible, although there is a wonderful sidebar on leasing the ship. Yes. Apparently that's an option. Who knew? But aside from the ship drama, there's a lot to do in this town. There are 13 locations spelled out, including a Runethrower (fortune-teller) who gives the PCs crucial information on their Epic Goals! There's an interesting tension between the underclass and the jarl, which could be very interesting for politically-minded PCs, and options for how the friends the PCs make in town can influence their crew for the ship! Overall, it's well done! There's like one thing that I cannot stand about this section, though, and it's these: [CENTER][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/nJQBrbg.png[/IMG] [IMG]https://i.imgur.com/rxP25WW.png[/IMG][/CENTER] Now, you're probably thinking, "Oh, crap, Sparky's about to go off on another tangent about map design again." Well you would be wrong, [I]Dan.[/I] In fact, I am upset for a completely unrelated issue, my dislike for photorealistic maps having been well-established. I'm upset because these are full-page maps for a location in which, as far as I can tell, [I]there is never a need for a map.[/I] Nothing but roleplaying happens here. You couldn't have spent this page space on something useful, design team?? Why are these here? Alright, regardless, the PCs eventually get a ship and sail off onto the Serpent Sea! Well, not quite. Those Whar raiders who ambushed them at the tower decide that they've had one ambush, yes, but what about a [I]second[/I] ambush! Truly, these guys are masterfully cunning. Anyway, the PCs fight their way out, and get a raven from the volv, who are like, "Hey, those Whar guys? They live here." The adventure adds a location to the PCs map, which Hrolf D. Viking, Esquire, asks the PCs to check out. Oh, you remember that kid, Siddhe? Well, if the PCs try to leave them behind, they sneak aboard. Congratulate the PCs on this [I]other[/I] DMPC they've acquired! My overall feelings about Chapter 1 are mixed. Layout issues continue to drag down what could be amazing material, and the poor communication from the text to the players makes pixelbitching a real concern. That being said, there's more than enough awesome here to make it worth your while. I mean, who doesn't want to steal a Viking longship? Next time, friends, we will set sail on the Serpent Sea, and put some raiding in this Raiders of the Serpent Sea campaign! [CENTER][IMG alt="oh yeah GIF"]https://media1.giphy.com/media/ue1GO5swPdORq/200.gif[/IMG] [I]President Obama approves this message.[/I][/CENTER] [/QUOTE]
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