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| The (An) Abandoned Tower |
The Abandoned Tower (2020)
by “Ed S”
Published by FEI Games Inc
Small, dodgy
homebrew adventures are the realm of the pleasant surprise, the rough gem, the
underappreciated talent, the enthusiastic beginner effort, the artsy amateur
project. Then there are these things. They are small, dodgy, and... yeah, they
are small and dodgy. I buy them and usually don’t bother to review them because
what’s the point. This time, they have gone too far.
The Abandoned
Tower (called An Abandoned Tower in its
DTRPG listing) is an 8-page adventure written by “Ed S” (more on this later). It
is a marvel of engineering. Two of the 8 pages are dedicated to the OPEN GAME
LICENSE Version 1.0a. Some publishers try to shunt this off into a half-page
section – not Ed S. He lets it stretch, comfortably, over ¼ of his adventure.
One page is reserved for the Credits & Thanks section, where the author
thanks, among others, E. Gary Gygax (spinning mightily), Wizards of the Coast
for their OGL/SRD, Open Office Writer, Dungeon Painter Studio, PDF Architect,
Microsoft Paint, GOOGLE Search Engine, YAHOO Search Engine, LuLu Printing,
DriveThruRPG.com, and more. This page also includes the three maps for the
(an?) abandoned tower. This has some fancy-pants objects placed here and there,
but in a classic TSR blue map, it would be three circles with a spiral
staircase symbol each, an exterior stair, and two doors.
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| Credits & Thanks |
But how was the
play, Mrs. Lincoln? I am glad you asked, for the next four pages are dedicated
to the actual adventure (including a quarter-page illustration of a rose of all
things). When I call an adventure’s margins “generous”, I mean it. This
adventure has generous margins, and a font size to match. So then we get
to the actual adventure, which begins with 1¼ pages of read-aloud text
describes how the party is led to “a modest but well kept cottage” in
the village of Blue Lake, and how the village elder, Shem Long, makes a long-winded
speech to the party about investigating this “old abandoned tower” in the
woods, and offers them a 30 gp merchant voucher (“can go up to 35 gp”,
he notes, parenthetically). After the introduction, we get ½ page on the
Lakeside Inn, where the party will be sleeping. “The bar, tables and chairs
are all well worn but stable.” Unquote. There are rumours, and “The rest
of the night goes by without any incidents…..” (it is not an ellipse, it is
FIVE dots) This is followed by a section titled “Next Morning”. What the
fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck.
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| Next Morning |
… Ahem. This is
followed by a section titled “Next Morning”. The adventure informs us
that Shem Long is now waiting for the party, sitting on the bench outside, and
generously also adds that “If the party refuses the job offer, this
adventure is over….” (four DOTS) Otherwise, Shem takes them shopping to the
“General Store (25% of stocking anything common), a Simple Butcher &
Cheese Shop, a Bakery, and a Blacksmith. The DM can build upon this if needed.”
Am I IMAGINING this SHIT?! WHaT?! “As the party uses the merchant voucher
the amount spent is written on it with ink.”
Then, no
kidding, it has a wilderness section in a ¼ page paragraph called “Area
Around The Abandoned Tower”. It is a world of limitless imagination, because
the module tells you the area around the tower should be mostly encounter free,
except for wildlife. But you can hunt or fish, find tracks, or outright make up
things. “If anybody checks for tracks they will find the tracks of typical
small wildlife, horses and ponies, and various sizes of human and humanoid footprints
going in all directions. The DM should feel free to ass [sic] anything if
so desired.”
Some of you vulgarians
might be wondering “But where is the adventure? Aren’t we running out of pages?”
Why, yes, this is where we get our tower adventure, on one (1) page. There are
kobolds and an ogre, described with basic tactics – this is elementary but not
entirely terrible, with watches, alarms, and sallies. Some of the text
describes the tower, describing pretty much the same thing you could gleam from
the map. “The tower appears to be 3 stories tall with 2 doors on the
outside.” Appears to be? …appears to be but isn’t? …appears to be but
secretly, one of the stories is divided horizontally? …appears to be but there
are dungeons? No. Subverting all expectations, it is just a shit boring forest
tower. “The structure of the tower is made of large stones mortared
together. The roof is made of your typical clay tiles.” What am I reading
here. Help. The horror. The HORROR.
The tower has no
key. Everything about the description is a jumbled mess, describing the tower
by describing the battle the characters will have there. It is a chaotic affair,
for we never actually know how many kobolds there are. Are there 25 kobolds? Or
is the ambush party of five kobolds counted separately? But wait, there are
five more kobolds armed with bows… are they the same as the ambush party? Well,
there are no stat blocks in the text. The ogre will escape during this final battle,
and make away with the collected treasure, for the TRV and AVTHENTIC “Ye Olde
Crapsacke Fantasye” feel. But only if the ogre rolls his rope climbing check –
this is specifically mentioned, although how this check should be conducted, or
what are the odds of its success, are left to A Wild World of Wondrous
Imagination. The ogre can then become a recurring villain, or the party can
track him to an old cabin, where he will “try to bargin [sic] his
life for the sack of treasure. If this offer is refused then the Ogre will
challenge the party to a one on one [sic] to the death duel between
himself and one of the party members…..” FIVE dots. And so ends the
expedition to the (an) Abandoned Tower.
But wait! There
is another page with a monster section! This section, surrounded by more of
those generous margins, describe the “kobold” and the “ogre”. Wow! The kobold
is ½ HD, does 1-4 or weapon-1 damage, and is of the Chaotic alignment, while
the ogre is 4+1 HD, does 1-10 damage, and is of the Chaotic alignment. Both of
these monsters are illustrated by the artists credited in the Credits &
Thanks section as “Unknown Artists”. You can find the ogre in the 1st
edition WFRPG rulebook, page 224, under “Ogre”. Anyway, the module also comes
with helpful DM advice, saying, “All treasure found within this adventure should
be chosen by the DM, randomly rolled according to the treasure charts in the
rule book, or a combination of both to ensure game balance in each individual
game…” As you can see, this greatly aids customisation, as well as
adaptation to different rulesets, in A Wild World of Wondrous Imagination.
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| Unknown Artists |
No playtesters
are credited in this publication. Actually, the author is not credited either,
here or anywhere else. He knows this would be a bad idea. The only
reason I know his name is from his response to a DTRPG comment complaining
about this goddamn ripoff. To which “Ed S” responds, quote, “Did you expect
a $10 module for a $2 8 page pdf?????? I will be happy to refund your money....”
Well, yeah, fuck you, too, Ed, fuck you too. You win this round.
Rating: * /
*****
