Review: Righteous Vow Vol. 3 - The Mountain Dragon's Brood
Today we are looking at Righteous Vow Vol. 3: The Mountain Dragon's Brood. This is a 176 page regional adventure with a hexmap and a few keyed dungeons, similar to volumes 1 and 2. It sits somewhere between a 5e/Pathfinder style adventure path and a sandbox like the Cursed Scrolls, although closer to the former than the latter.
The setup is that some orcs and also a dragon and its attendant cult are attacking a couple of kingdoms - one human and one dwarven. The kings of both appeal to the party for aid.
A possible and likely start to the adventure is the first dungeon: Scorched Tower - the hideout of an orc warband. Random encounters have taken a step backwards even from the meager tables we got in Righteous Vow Vol 1. Here we only get 2 entries: 1: 2d6 orcs (SD p.240) charge towards you. 2-6: Safe...for now. Look if you can't think of 5 things to put on the random encounter table maybe adventure writing isn't for you.
The tower consists of 3 levels, is full of orcs and not much else. No hazards, obstacles, tricks, or traps. You're going to roll initiative as soon as you roll up to the place and since all orcs are within earshot of each other the fight won't end until the last one is dead. A very sneaky party might be able to get a few rooms into it before raising the alarm, since many of the orcs are asleep. But either way the sole mode of gameplay here is orc stabbin'.
At the end of the dungeon the party rescues a pair of knights that ask to be returned to Northold. On the way there the party will go through a town called Dermund but there is little to learn there and no real leads. Orcs have attacked it recently, and having just cleared the warband hanging out at the tower the party may feel that this problem is dealt with. Once they get to Northhold, the first adventure hook they'll find is a mission to rescue the two knights they just rescued in the first dungeon. That's fortuitous. Having rescued the missing knights, The party will then be given an audience with the prince, who will give them letters to go visit the local human and dwarven kings.
From here, the human King Leonydas (no relation) will send the party with his daughter to retrieve some magic teleportation rings from a dungeon called "Nord Ruins". The dwarf King Dairon also has a few quests - take out some orc warlords and rescue his children that have been taken by duergar and imprisoned in the dark dungeons of Nazulgrath. This is what makes up the bulk of the adventure.
The Nord Ruins are a three level dungeon under a graveyard with 27 rooms. I had to use math to count the number of rooms because the numbering restarts on each floor. That is a rather novel inconvenience that I've not seen before. Makes it hard to keep track of where you are when room numbers are repeated. Anyhoo, the tradition of random non-encounters continues.
One encounter, one "attack the light" with no chance of avoidance, three absolute nothings and one boon. The purpose of a random encounter table is to apply some time and resource pressure to PCs. The longer they linger, the more encounters they will have that drain their hit points, spells, gear, etc. The majority of these will have no impact on the PCs and one even helps them, completely subverting the design intent of random encounters.
Otherwise the dungeon is pretty cliche. Statues with gemstone eyes that come to life if you try to take them. Spike pit traps in narrow hallways. Sarcophagi containing the unquiet dead, waiting patiently to pounce. Important details are missing throughout.
There's a library full of books. We're told that each PC can carry 10 books (how does that translate to gear slots) and that each is worth 200 gp (!). But it doesn't tell us how many books there are in total, so maybe it's an infinite XP glitch. That tracks with the entire adventure being designed like a '90s shareware CRPG. But even if you cap the overall total at 10 per PC, that's maybe 8,000 gp just laying around. There are three wights, 2d6 zombies and a one pit trap between the local villagers and total financial independence. It's one thing to have gaps that the GM needs to improv over, but it's another thing to need to erect defenses around the adventure as written.
The many traps that make up the bulk of the placed encounters in the Nord Ruins have the same problem: we are told what type of trap it is, what check is needed to avoid it and how much damage it does. But we're not really told how they're triggered, which provides crucial information about how it can be disabled. The better described a trap is, the more interactive it becomes and the more creativity the players can use to circumvent it. Otherwise it's just a random tax on hit points. If the floor is electrified but you don't bother including how that electricity is generated, you're restricting how the PCs can deal with it.
There's a hidden vampire lair in the Nord Ruins housing a single level 11 vampire. She attacks on site, of course, like most everything else in the adventure. Let's do some encounter math: The party will be, at minimum, level 5 and let's say there's four of them. Per the core book, an average encounter would be 12 levels of monsters. So already the vampire is at a disadvantage. On top of that, there are FOUR LEVEL 8 STONE GOLEMS that will help the PCs in the fight. That has to be the most wildly unbalanced encounter I have ever seen.
The adventure sites are placed on a 154 hex map. 25 or 16% of hexes are keyed - a goodly number. Unfortunately few of them offer any adventure or intrigue outside of the seats of the two kingdoms and the 5 or 6 locations that are directly tied to the plot. The rest are like "Beilb: This dwarven village is mostly abandoned. The mountain ran dry of mithral deposits years ago and many of the dwarves moved to Dourin." or "Paladain: Paladian is a northeastern village of Doxam that sits on the outskirts of the Forest of Egon. Many rangers train here and are considered valued members of the Doxam military." Totally inert. Nothing to drive the game forward.
These settlements are exact copies of one another. There is a section towards the beginning called "Towns and Villages" that explains how "The settlements in the two kingdoms are each unique" and then gives a single description for each feature (smithy, inn, marketplace, etc) that is to be reused for every settlement, human or dwarven. These settlements are briefly described in the hex keys, but to know which features are actually present at each one you have to check a different table located elsewhere in the book. Would have been handy to keep that information in one place.
A few of the settlements are actually keyed, but it doesn't help much. The NPCs just aren't given much to do but reinforce the quests that the party is already on ("hey can you help take care of these orcs?"). There are a few half-hearted sidequests like "some orcs stole my ale, can you get it back?" with no further details provided. Except that the barrels are each worth 200 gp or approximately 22 longswords. No word on how many there are, though, so there's another infinite XP glitch.
And then there are the "rumors". They read a lot like the repetitive NPC one-liners from early Final Fantasy games. "Gulperton used to be a place where free folk could come and go and the orcs left us alone. Now they're everywhere" or "The paladins of Doxam follow a code they are sworn to." What are players supposed to do with this information? None of this will lead to any interesting gameplay or even inspire the PCs to go to any of these places. In a hexcrawl, rumors need to serve two purposes: 1) get the party moving and exploring and 2) create an interesting, living world. These absolutely fail at #1 and make a minimal contribution to #2. None of it is worth remembering or writing down. You could eliminate the rumors from this adventure entirely and nothing would change.
And then there's the business of rescuing the dwarven prince and princess from the Duergar in Nazulgrath. As the adventure overview tells us, "Characters delving into the shadowdark to rescue the prince and princess will infiltrate the dark dungeons of Nazulgrath." This quest is crucially important because the outcome determines whether the dragon and orcs nuke the dwarven city. So let's just check the table of contents to find Nazulgrath.
Huh. It's not there.
Ctrl-f "nazulgrath". Click through the results, no description of the location. Maybe it's in a separate file? Check Backerkit. Nope, nothing else in there.
So I go and check the Kickstarter page. It turns out the Nazulgrath, a location that is integral to the adventure contained in Righteous Vow Vol. 3, is a paid expansion. If you want your PCs to be able to actually complete the quests they're given, you need to fork over ten more bucks. More videogame nonsense.
That, dear readers, is horseshit. I have 196 titles in my DriveThruRPG library and dozens more from itch.io and other sources. I have certainly purchased some adventures that I didn't care for or wouldn't use, but they were all made in good faith by their creators. I think this is the first time I've actually felt cheated. Of the manifold things I have complained about since starting this blog, intentionally omitting a key location from your adventure so you can shake me down for more money offends me the most.
If you're still hanging in there, the final dungeon is the dragon's lair, Helvut. We are told that obtaining the fast travel rings are necessary to get there: "With these rings, a small force can be sent past Khul's armies and circumvent most of the threats blocking the way to Helvult." If any such armies exist they are not described anywhere. According to the map and hex descriptions you can just walk there no problem. It's only four hexes from the castle.
Helvult has 23 rooms and there are a few interesting encounters including an undead wizard with a cursed staff and some dryad prisoners. There is also this: "▶Pitfall Traps. The stone floor tiles conceal a series of patterned pit traps. Each has a 15-foot drop into a 5-foot by 5-foot pit of rusted spikes. DC 15 DEX check or fall and take 3d6 damage. The carvings written in Elvish can be deciphered to help navigate the hallway and keep the characters from falling to their dooms. ▶ Inscriptions. If the adventurers stand at the east door, the inscription reads, 'One forward, one right, two forward, one left, one forward, repeat. Beware the tile before the north door.'" I like to imagine how this will play out at the table.
GM: The interior of the hall is bare but carvings in the walls look like a hastily scrawled form of elvish text.
Player: I read elvish, what do they say?
GM: "One forward, one right, two forward, one left, one forward, repeat. Beware the tile before the north door."
Player: I follow that pattern when I walk across the hall.
GM: OK, uh, you're on the other side now.
It has the appearance of an interactive puzzle or challenge but the way it's written actually circumvents the need to really interact with it. It's the kind of puzzle that works fine when you're controlling Link with a d-pad but doesn't make sense in the context of a TTRPG.
Helvult also houses the Necronomicon. If the PCs destroy it, "the dragon
could turn on the Cultists and create a dire situation for the inhabitants of
Helvult." This is a big deal and we are not given nearly enough information. In fact, this is all we get. Does the dragon go on an immediate rampage? How does the dragon react to the PCs? Is it grateful and willing to negotiate? Or blind with with rage? Can the PCs use the Necronomicon? What else is in it? How does it corrupt people? There are no answers here. Maybe that's coming in a future DLC.
At least the art is very well done and abundant. Except that, for the most part, it doesn't actually depict scenes from the adventure itself. An old graveyard is accompanied by a full-page piece depicting a wraith under a full moon standing floating in front of several menhirs, but in the text he's found underground in a throne room. The dragon's lair is described as being in a natural cave but the accompanying picture depicts it as a ruined castle. There's a disconnect between the text and the art throughout.
The whole thing just feels hollow. What's there is rote fantasy tropes - Orc warbands attacking villages. A dragon attacking a dwarven mountain kingdom. Besides the whole issue of what's not there and absolutely should be. It brings nothing new to the table, and what it brings is not well-executed. Important information is missing everywhere. It doesn't follow the most basic advice for adventure design and there's been no improvement since Vol 1. It's all full of sound and fury and kickstarter campaigns and dungeontuber interviews, signifying nothing.
On a scale of 2-12, Righteous Vow Vol. 3: The Mountain Dragon's Brood gets 3 stingbats.
Comments
Post a Comment