Review: Final Torch Issue #2 - Pirates of Barnacle Bay

 

Today we're looking at Final Torch Issue #2 - Pirates of Barnacle Bay by Ross Mahler. Barnacle Bay is a setting and hexcrawl (hexsail?) through a dangerous island/sea region. Besides the hexcrawl it's got rules for for ships and ship combat, a nicely fleshed-out settlement, an intro adventure, some tools for creating adventures, monsters, magic items, etc etc. It's what the kids these days call a "zine".

The hexmap has 156 hexes, 35 of which are keyed. Not the biggest map geographically, but it's dense, having a better ratio of keyed to unkeyed hexes than most adventures I've looked at. And the descriptions are very well done, full of interesting scenarios, adventure seeds and connections to other locations, like a child lives inside a circle of conch shells on a deserted island. He's actually a trickster demon and the only monk that knows the truth has taken a vow of silence. There are sea monsters, vengeful ghost sailors, hags, dens of iniquity, all the stuff you want in a pirate adventure. Plenty to propel your party across the map like a pinball.

And on top of the main map there's another 64-hex map for the Fey Ocean, with another 10 keyed locations. There are a few portals in the regular ocean that can transport the part to this sort of alternate universe. But I'm not sure it's alternate enough. The stuff in the "normal" map is pretty weird as it is, so the Fey ocean really needed to dial it up to 11. But most of the creatures and other things the PCs will encounter wouldn't seem very out of place in a typical pirate adventure. I think if the party ends up there, they might not notice.

We are also lacking a bit in the factions and NPCs department. We don't have them outlined anywhere and there's nothing in the way of competing factions or NPCs with nefarious schemes. I'm not saying you need to a have a plot or some kind of structured narrative. These are just some things that can inject needed structure into an open-world campaign like this, giving the PCs allies and enemies with goals to help or hinder, and driving an over-arching conflict. Some players might be just fine with a very episodic campaign of treasure-seeking, but in my own experience they will probably want more of an answer to "why are we doing this?" than the text of Final Torch Issue #2 offers. So although there are some very good bones here you might need to slap on some of your own flesh to make it really complete.

Throughout it all are some very carefully constructed random encounters that strike a nice balance between being actual threats, worldbuilding and providing some nice sparks to ignite a larger adventure. And often two or three of these elements are present in a single encounter. 

The settlement, Port of Barnacle Bay, is small but makes each location and NPC matter. It does what it needs to do, providing rumors and adventure hooks as well as some interesting shenanigans to get up to between adventures. There are a few different gambling games and some interesting shops to visit. The NPC descriptions are a highlight - brief enough to grok at a glance but with enough substance to give the GM something to build a character from. For example, the innkeeper is "Mother hen to every lost soul who takes up residence". That alone paints a pretty complete picture. In some cases, just the name is enough (looking at you, Bartholomew Snivelton).

Speaking of painting pictures, the original watercolor art is breathtaking. In fact I went right to the artist's website (https://tracymahler.com/) to see if I could buy prints of any of the 10 beautiful pieces contained in the book but, alas, I could not. But hey, just throwing that idea out there.

The intro adventure, Tomb of the Tides, is an 11-room swim to recover a lost necklace from a sunken ship. Everyone loves an underwater level, right? Usually such adventures deal with breathing in one of two ways - they either hand everyone a potion that makes it a total non-issue, or there's something like repeated CON checks to hold your breath. Tomb of the Tides takes a different tack (that's a sailing reference) akin to the ol' potion of underwater breathing but with a twist: you strap a special breed of octopus on your face. But if the lights go out or if you roll a 1 on any check, there's a mishap table. The results go from immediate malfunction to a squirt of magic healing ink. 

The adventure is set up like an aquatic monster zoo. Most of the rooms consist of a different monster and a treasure to be found. The imminent threat of drowning in a dark shipwreck provides some nice tension but most of the party's interactions will be with the strange creatures lurking in the depths. So it kind of lives or dies on the strength of those monsters. 

And I'm not sure they're quite strong enough. Monsters like the bulbfish, darkshroud lurker and dread eye have some debilitating special abilities, but most of them won't have an impact unless there is some other threat. Being hypnotized or blinded for a little bit might cause a slight delay but is unlikely to affect the entire party at once. So these effects won't be terribly impactful unless you have multiple attackers or are standing in a room full of bear traps. And that isn't really the case anywhere here. There's a nice random encounter table but the dungeon is only unsafe, meaning you make a check every 3 rounds

So one obvious tweak would be to crank up the number of random encounter rolls. But I would also probably add a big baddie swimming from room to room, à la the Scarlet Minotaur, to really put some pressure on and give the PCs a reason to panic when their companion is stumbling around confused for 1d4 rounds.

It's certainly serviceable but lacks variety. Still, it's probably short enough that it won't overstay its welcome. The real purpose is for the PCs to find the ship's log, which contains hooks to adventures in several other areas of the bay. As an introduction to the region and launchpad for further adventures, it gets the job done. 

The first is a sort of fishing/creature hunting competition. The party kills or captures creatures and gets points equal to their level. Then there are rivals whose points are sort of randomly determined. At the end there is maybe a prize as determined by the GM. It seems like the gameplay loop will be to travel around waiting for suitable random encounters. Then you fight and repeat. It would be cool if the PCs could take a more active part in the hunt portion of the competition rather than relying on chance. Maybe something a little more structured like the marks system from Into the Wyrd and Wyld. Otherwise it might feel a bit passive and dependent more on RNG than player interaction.

The second is a treasure hunt. This is, essentially, a list of adventure hooks with an extra helping of background and lore. For example: "Fenric's Last Dive: Fenric Tuttle, a renowned diver, made a fantastic discovery while exploring the Fey Ocean floor. While fleeing a Great Black Marlin, he accidentally disturbed a layer of sediment and uncovered a full set of Leviathan Skin Armor. Fenric hid the armor away until he could research it further. The armor, he learned, was crafted by Morvath the Unseen, an archmage who still resides in the inky waters of The Twilight Zone (F206). Before he could retrieve the treasure, Fenric went missing."

I like these a lot. I feel like I could pretty easily put a fun and interesting session or two together with this information. They tie into the setting nicely while helping to build it out, are easy to seed throughout and usually present a nice, open-ended situation for the party to sink its teeth into.

Pirates of Barnacle Bay has a lot of good bits. The hexcrawl is very robust with locations are very well-written and show a balance between specificity and brevity that many similar zines struggle with. Beyond that it's got several compelling little dramas hiding out in the treasure hunts and a great settlement for downtime intrigue and activity. But I do wish the Fey Ocean was a little weirder and distinguished itself from Ocean Classic a little better. And that the adventure was a little meatier. And with the lack of factions and larger-scale conflicts, it's not quite self-contained. So I think the GM will need to bring some spice to keep the players engaged. If all else fails, you can look at the pretty pictures.

On a scale of 2-12, Pirates of Barnacle Bay gets 8 stingbats.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/540284/final-torch-issue-2-pirates-of-barnacle-bay-shadowdark