The Occupied Fortress

 By Logen Nein

Self Published

System neutral & no set level

 Premise: A fortress is occupied, go take it over.

What do we get here?

 A simple one page dungeon covers 20 keyed locations on a single level.

 Usability/formatting

 Everything that you get here is clear and easy to use. The map is good quality and the writing concise. Nothing is confusing or will take you time to work out.

 The problem is there is not actually a lot here. There are no NPCs, interesting treasure, things to interact with, faction play or even really placed monsters on the map. Really all you are getting here is a map, which is not bad but it is not an adventure. Even the room descriptions are a bit bland and unremarkable.

 Portability

 Given the lack of content you can easily drop this down in any campaign world as needed.

 Recommendation

 You can do worse if you need a free dungeon map however but warned you are not getting much more than that.

https://logen-nein.itch.io/the-occupied-fortress

Goblin Bandit Camp & More Goblin Bandit Camp

FEI Games

B/X levels 1-3

Premise: Two goblin camps.

What do we get here?

 Two single level dungeons with about 4 rooms in each, no adventure, just the dungeons spread over 10 pages.

 Usability/formatting

 The use of columns and short paragraphs makes the sparse content easy to parse. Which is about as far as I can go with being complimentary on this one.

 There are not really any descriptions when it comes to what the rooms look like, just a list of the enemies and a few items with in. In general the writing could have done with another pass to catch some obvious errors like missing words.

 Stats for monsters are included at the back along with the stats for a wolf which appears nowhere in either dungeon that I could spot. There are also stats for a goblin scimitar as a non magical +3 weapon which is not listed as treasure anywhere so are we to assume this is what all goblins are armed with?!?!

 Portability

 I mean there is literally no personality or identity to either dungeon so you can drop them anywhere if you really, really wanted to use this product.

 Recommendation

 It is hard for something that costs $2 to be overpriced yet this adventure some how is. Do not waste your money here, you can knock up better than this in five minutes on your own.

 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/299301/Goblin-Bandit-Camp-More-Goblin-Bandit-Camp-An-OSR-B-X-Fantasy-Rule-System-Game-Scenario

The Hidden Colony of Layanaka

 

By Nik Vinter

Self Published

B/X levels 1-4

Premise: The Mayor of the village on a small island wants you to go map out a lost colony on the island which was founded by escaped prisoners.

What do we get here?

Over 22 pages we get a dungeon that has 49 keyed rooms and another 10 or so labelled sub-rooms.

Usability/Formatting

Most of what you need to run the adventure has been thought of here apart from any description of how you traverse the island. Compared to The Isle of Forgotten Gods this adventure is missing a point or hex crawl leading up to its dungeon to bring the setting to life.

I really like the art, which is done by the author, it is simple and clean really adding to the adventure. It is also nice that you get the map of the dungeon upfront.

Information is easy to track and for the most part the adventure is very easy to read, what it is lacking however is some better descriptions for the rooms. For each room you get a single paragraph and it seems you are expected to expand on that yourself.

All key monster stats are presented in the text for the room they appear in which is very helpful. You also get an expanded bestiary at the end which is nice. Having a bunch of new monsters helps add to the flavour of the adventure.

There is nothing stopping you running the adventure as is, it just lacks a little bit in connective tissue.

Portability

As long as you have a slightly tropical island in your setting you can easily slap this adventure down with no problems.

Recommendation

There is a lot to like here but the adventure does have some problems. Apart from the stuff I already mentioned I have to call out the lack of unique or interesting treasure, which is particular stark when compared to the excellent job with unique monsters, and I also think that the dungeon is not exactly logically consistent with the back story. The colony only existed for a short time and was built by escaped prisoners so where did they knock up an art gallery and library from? Not my go to requirements in a survival situation with a new colony really.

Unfortunately this is a flawed piece despite containing a number of strong elements, it just needs a bit more polish and clean up. Likely I would just advise running The Isle of Forgotten Gods instead of running this adventure.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/347216/The-Hidden-Colony-Of-Layanaka

D1 A Copper Killing

 

By Sean Robert Meaney

Vaults of Pandius

B/X 1st level

Premise: You visit an inn which is the cover for a gang hideout.

What do we get here?

 Over 12 pages we get what is intended to be a solo adventure covering a dungeon with 13 keyed locations.

 Usability/formatting

 There is nothing fancy about the layout of this adventure, it is short enough that it does not need to much in the way of lay out to help you through it.

 The writing could really do with some polish but in the sections for the DM and the read alouds. I found the read aloud sections to be way too dry, nothing to build atmosphere in them really.

 Most of the maps are decent, the initial map of the town is too small to pick out the numbers on it but that does not really have any affect on running the adventure just if you want to carry on the campaign in the location afterwards.

 Portability

 Mystara is the nominal setting for the adventure however it is so small scale and low key you can easily drop it in an inn in any setting really. You might have to change some of the names but otherwise this is an easy port to your own setting.

 Recommendation

 What this adventure is lacking more than anything is a hook to draw the PC in. There is an attempt to railroad things if the player does not bite which is far too heavy handed. 

There is nothing that much interesting in the way of loot and what rewards the adventure does give throws too much XP considering this is supposed to be a solo adventure.

 You can probably scratch up something equal to this on your own with minimal thought. Where this adventure does have a benefit is that it is free so all the work is done for you. You can pull this out and run it without much thought, just do not expect anything more than a bland adventure if you do run without polishing it up.

http://pandius.com/d1_a_copper_killing.pdf

Wild Elves (New Class)

  Those elves who turned their back on civilisation and returned to the old ways of the first elves are known as wild or wood elves in my setting. This is an attempt to build a class for elves that are much more nature focused than the standard OSE elves which are more of a high elf type. My hope is to kit bash together elements of barbarian, druid, elf and ranger to find something that fits. 

 Being illiterate was something I considered for Wild Elves to make them more barbarian like however I am not sure that would work with them casting spells, maybe if they lost the magic item part of divine casting? Also do you think they should have the magical research option too? I left that out for now but have been considering putting it back in.

 I used a combination of the methods of "Classing up the Joint" and "B/X Options" so I would really love any feed back on where I might have gone wrong or stuffed things up such as the XP values.

Wild Elf

Requirements: Minimum WIS 9

Prime requisite: CON and STR

Hit Dice: 1d6

Maximum level: 10

Armour: Leather, shields

Weapons: Club, Spear, Long Bow and Short Bow

Languages: Alignment, Common, Elvish, Gnoll, Hobgoblin, Orcish

Prime requisites: A Wild Elf with at least 13 in one prime requisite gains a 5% bonus to experience. If both STR and CON are 16 or higher, the Wild Elf gets a +10% bonus.

Charm Immunity

Wild Elves are immune to the charms of fairies and Sylvan creatures (e.g. dryads, nixies).

Divine Magic

Holy symbol: A Wild must carry a holy symbol: a sprig of mistletoe which the character must harvest.

Spell casting: From 1st level, due to a deep connection with nature, a Wild Elf gains the ability to cast spells.

The power and number of spells available to a Wild Elf are determined by the character’s experience level. The list of spells available to wild elves is found in druid spell list.

Using magic items: As spell casters, Wild Elves can use magic scrolls of spells on theirs pell list. They can also use items that may only be used by divine spell casters (e.g. some staves). Wild Elves may not use magical books or tomes.

Foraging and Hunting

A party with a wild elf succeeds at foraging with a 2-in-6 chance and finds prey when hunting with a 5-in-6 chance .

Identification

Wild Elves can identify all plants and animals and can discern pure water.

Infravision

Wild Elves have infravision to 60’.

Path-Finding

A party with a Wild Elf has only a 1-in-6 chance of getting lost in woodlands. 

Tracking

Wild Elves can identify and follow tracks. This skill improves as the character gains levels (see the table to the Ranger tracking table). Success may be modified by the following factors:

▶ Soft/hard ground: +20% to –50%.

▶ Size of group being tracked: +2% per creature beyond the first.

▶ Passing through an area where other tracks mingle: –50%.

▶ Age of tracks: –5% per 12 hours.

▶ Rainfall: –25% per hour.

▶ Efforts made to hide tracks: –25%.

Wild Elf Level Progression

                                                            Saving Throws             Spells

Level     XP             HD      THAC0     D  W  P   B   S           1 2 3 4 5

1             0               1d6         19 [0]     12 13 13 15 15           1 – – – –

2             2,300        2d6         19 [0]     12 13 13 15 15           2 – – – –

3             4,600        3d6         19 [0]     12 13 13 15 15           2 1 – – –

4             7,200        4d6         17 [+2]   10 11 11 13 12           2 2 – – –

5             15,000      5d6         17 [+2]   10 11 11 13 12           2 2 1 – –

6             30,000      6d6         17 [+2]   10 11 11 13 12           2 2 2 – –

7             60,000      7d6         14 [+5]   8   9   9  10  10           3 2 2 1 –

8             120,000    8d6         14 [+5]   8   9   9  10  10           3 3 2 2 –

9             240,000    9d6         14 [+5]   8   9   9  10  10           3 3 3 2 1

10           500,000    9d6+2*  12 [+7]    6   7   8   8   8             3 3 3 3 2

* Modifiers from CON no longer apply. D: Death / poison; W: Wands;

                                                                P: Paralysis / petrify; B: Breath attacks;

                                                                S: Spells / rods / staves.

After Reaching 9th Level 

A Wild Elf may construct a stronghold in the depths of the forest, blending in with the natural environment of a site of great beauty, for example: in the treetops, beside a serene valley, or hidden behind a waterfall. Whatever material it is made of, the construction costs as much as similar work in stone, due to the exquisite quality of craftsmanship involved.

 Forest animals within a 5 mile radius of the completed stronghold will become friends with the elves. They may warn of intruders, carry messages and news, and so on. In exchange for this friendship, the  Wild Elf must protect the animals from harm.

 A Wild Elf ruler may only hire Wild Elf mercenaries. Specialists and retainers of any race may be hired.

Spears of the Northmen

 By Thief of Whispers

Self published

Worlds Without Number levels 3-4

Premise: A tribal leader beset by grief at the loss of his son his holding a village in the grips of terror while he tries to blind a demon's spirit to his body.

What do we get here?

This is a hex crawl spanning 19 pages that has 13 locations for you to interactive culminating in a dungeon with 15 keyed locations.

Usability/formatting

Now I will start by saying this is perfectly usable in its current status and the formatting is decent, about average for a modern adventure. That being said with some fairly easy steps there are some major ways this adventure could be improved for dungeon masters looking to run it.

The same advise you will hear a lot of places applies here. Split the page into two columns then break down the information in the paragraphs into read alouds and bullet point expansions would make the information so much easier to scan and track. My own personal bugbear applies here too, stick the maps at the top of the section they apply to so you can orient yourself before reading what all the locations are.

Speaking of maps, the dungeon one is decent enough, the hex map is a bit hard to parse which is kind of unforgivable as there are many free options out there for knocking out hex maps easily.

In places there is a bit too much writing, things could definitely be cut back. With a good editing and formatting passes this could be really top notch. There is one place near the start where the adventure refers to “men and boys” defending the village, in this day and age I think we could probably make that “warriors and adolescents” to get the same message across while being a bit more inclusive.

Portability

You need a northern-ish/pseudo Scandinavian area to plop this adventure down in ideally although I suppose you could re-skin it fairly easily to a different type of forested set up with harsh weather like a rainforest maybe? Either way you should be able to slap this down in any setting fairly easily, there are not really many built in setting assumptions in the adventure.

Recommendation

So yes, you can run this easily and it is free I think well worth checking out. There is a decent amount of content spread over just 22 pages.

I would want to make a couple of changes before running this. Firstly I would tie in the antagonist's motivation to the village a big closer, there are a few different actors in the adventure opening up faction play a little but the village itself does not really exist as a faction which is a missed opportunity in my opinion.

Secondly knock up a decent rumour table for the village itself to give players some idea in what directions to start off in.

https://thiefofwhispers.wordpress.com/2022/08/26/spears-of-the-northmen-an-adventure-for-worlds-without-number/

Fall of White Cliff

 

By Ben Gibson

Cold Light Press

Pathfinder 1e levels 1-4

Premise: Characters wake up in the prison of an evil Castellan, can they escape and stop his plans?

What do we get here?

 Spread over 20 pages are 7 different dungeons, a short region gazetteer and a number of detailed locations make up a small sandbox adventure.

 Usability/Formatting

 Nearly everything you need to run a session or dungeon is contained on one page. Occasionally things get a little busy and hard to follow however overall this a really impressively put together product.

 Another editing pass would not go amiss and some of the paragraphs could have been bullet pointed with attempts made to highlight key information. For the most part the writing is decent, easy to use and to the point.

 Some times it would have helped to have a little bit more to tie the different locations together or point you to the next part of the adventure, this a sandbox though so partly you will be guided by where the players want to go.

 Portability

 There is nothing too specific in the adventure to tie it to any setting or location. You might have to massage things a bit with some of the cults included to make it fit your particular world and it will need to be put in a remote region so there are not larger powers that be coming in to deal with things.

 Realistically as this is specifically a starting adventure you could take as is and build out rather than put it in an existing campaign or world.

 There is some lip service paid to converting this adventure to either 5E or an OSR system however I think you would mostly have to do that yourself rather than rely on the adventure to do it for you.

 Recommendation

 This is a pay what you want adventure so you are getting a ton of really useful content for free here. As is this is perfectly easy to run but I would love to see a slightly cleaned up premium product of this adventure. I am interested to see what else Ben Gibson has out there now.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/210944/The-Fall-of-Whitecliff

Escaping Edgewild

 

By Joseph Robert Lewis

Dungeon Age

Basic 1st level

Premise: You awake locked in a cell with a bunch of strangers, can you escape before the slavers arrive in 4 hours time?

 What do we get here?

 Spanning 17 pages we get an adventure that can be run as a one shot, campaign kick off or with some modification might function as a funnel.

 Usability/Formatting

 As with the previous Dungeon Age adventure I reviewed this is a really well formatted adventure designed to be easy to run. Due to the nature of the scenario you do need to read the whole thing up front to make sure you know what happens in the case of certain triggers.

 The read alouds are better done than the ones in Witches of Forstwyck, they are brief and give hints at things for the players to explore rather than giving too much away. Maps are simplistic and clear, the only thing they lack is a scale which could be helpful. Given this adventure is run under a strict timer a scale would really help with keeping the players under the gun as they move about the fort section of the adventure.

 I would have liked to see the stat blocks for guards next to the appropriate paragraph for where they are found rather than at the back of the pdf, that is a minor quibble with such a short adventure though.

 Once you set up the scenario this is basically a sandbox for the players to try whatever they like to get out so while the advise is not exhaustive I think it covers most of the basic angles. You will need to be able to react to what your players do if they are really thinking outside the box.

 Portability

 You can easily drop this location and adventure in any setting, there is little in the way or detail or restrictions in the set up. NPC names are generic enough you can easily change them if needed.

 Recommendation

 I really like how much personality is fit into such a short amount of adventure and brief writing. All the NPCs are well done and the other prisoners come with nice flaws that can easily add wrinkles to the whole adventure.

 You might have to be a bit careful with the lethality of this adventure which is where running it as a funnel would help.

 This would make a great one off, campaign starter or possibly a competitive adventure at a con to see who can get the quickest escape time. You will be hard pressed to get an evening's fun for a group of people at such a low price doing anything else.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/310516/Escaping-Edgewild

Red Mound

 

 By Gabor Lux

First Hungarian d20 society

Advanced levels ?

 Premise: A red mound serves as a burial tomb, sacred spot and way point for travellers.

What do we get here?

Coming in at just three pages this small adventure site has eight keyed locations.  This is the second adventure of three in the first issue of Echoes from Fomalhaut, I previously looked at one of the other adventures in this issue here.

 Usability/Formatting

 Due to being an entry in a zine this is not the fanciest laid out adventure you will ever come across however it is easy enough to follow. The use of paragraphs and bolding make the adventure easy to scan as well as pick out key information.

 About the only thing you need to provide yourself might be stats for the local barbarians (called red men here), that should be easy enough to fish up yourself, otherwise all monster stats are provided.

 The map is a simple one that is easy to understand even if it lacks a scale.

 Portability

 It would be very easy to reskin and drop this adventure into any setting or campaign. All you need is some barbarians or barbarian adjacent people and a rocky area. Substituting in your own names or lore is easy.

 Recommendation

 If you are looking for a full fledged adventure obviously this is not going to be it at three pages. What this is designed to be is either a diversion during travel in a longer adventure, something you can drop in a hex to populate it or the kick off point for an adventure. 

 Both the location and the major magic item it comes with have hooks for going further. There is a portal that leads to an undefined location and the magic item that comes with some unusual curses for whoever picks it up to wrestle with.

 All in all a useful bit of content to plug and play. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/241136/Echoes-From-Fomalhaut-01-Beware-the-Beekeeper

Treaty of the Tiger King

 

By Kelsey Dionne

The Arcane Library

5E levels 1-3

Premise: The King of a Barbarian tribe comes to a port city to negotiate a peace deal with the merchants guild who has been pillaging his people's land.

What do we get here?

 Over 18 pages we get an adventure designed to last one session (session lengths may vary). The adventure is roughly seven scenes in length although you could fit in a bit more.

 Usability/Formatting

 As with all Kelsey Dionne's adventures this is designed with ease of use in mind. Links to everything you need along with cards you can print out for foes, maps and treasure(not much of that on offer here sadly). The writing is clear for the most part so you should be able to run the adventure reading it one page at a time.

 There are some fun little tables to spice up a few of the scenes which is a really nice addition. I also like the use what are essentially skills challenges and moral checks for combat, something which you rarely see in 5E adventures.

 Portability

 It should be fairly easy to file the names off and slot this adventure into any port city in the average setting. I know where I would fit this into my own world easily. You should be able to drop this in any time your players pass through the docks of a city. If you have a campaign planned out you could also seed a few rumours to foreshadow this adventure earlier on in your campaign.

 Recommendation

 Players get a lot of freedom to come up with solutions to the challenges presented in scenes however those scenes are pretty set in stone. If you are players are going to want to go off and hunt down the source of the assassins this adventure is going to come off the rails pretty quickly. 

 In my opinion this is a fun little adventure, I would have actually liked to have seen it expanded a bit more. For example the NPCs in the scene where the players can earn some rep do not seem to be of important enough stature or tied to the scenario particularly.

 I could definitely see dropping this into a campaign as a one shot or using it to kick off a major arc exploring the King's lands. Just make sure your players know this is more of a social adventure so things do not go too far off the rails.

https://www.thearcanelibrary.com/collections/1st-level/products/treaty-of-the-tiger-king

B/X Options: Class Builder

 Following up from yesterday this is the other option for those looking for aid in home brewing classes.

By Erin D. Smale

The Welsh Piper LLC

Premise: If you want to build your own custom classes for Old-School Essentials or any B/X based game then this supplement aims to give you all the tools you need.

What do we get here?

 Over 82 pages we get the tools to make your own custom classes as well as a whole slew of new classes and custom class variations as well as some variant rules.

 Usability/Formatting

 Laid out really well this is an easy to follow and use product. There is good use of paragraphs, columns both bold and italics. I especially like the work sheet provided it is a nice clean way to work through building your classes making sure nothing gets missed.

 My only real complaint is that some clarifications are hidden away in footnotes that might get missed or skipped over once you go back to start building your custom classes.

 Helpfully there are a good number examples, particularly in the appendix that shows the maths for all the base OSE classes. 

 I will say that between this product and the Classing Up the Joint alternative I reviewed yesterday I am still slightly confused on how saving throws for class types work. The two factors appear to be “total number of save points” and how often you improve your saves, neither document ever clarifies how this works to my satisfaction. I will be digging into blog posts later to get a better handle on this.

 There is more in terms of guidance and best practices advise here which is helpful.

 Portability

Obviously this product is tied to Basic descended games, thankfully there are a lot of them knocking about so you will get a fair amount of use out of it. Nothing in here is specific to any particular setting. 

Recommendation

 I really like this, it is a very powerful tool that comes with a lot of content. Even if you never get into class building yourself there are tons of useful new classes here. I especially like the bard alternative here but some of the new classes like the Beast-talker are really interesting options for players too!

 One thing to note is that I believe this class builder came out before the advanced version of OSE and as such includes alternative versions of classes that now have official OSE versions, the method itself may be in need of a revision in light of some of the advanced changes in OSE.

 Now the big questions is given this product is $9.99, so 20 times more expensive than the alternative is it worth it? As just a book of class options I would say this is value for money. I would recommend picking this up for sure if you have any interest in either more classes or making your own classes.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/302556/BX-Options-Class-Builder

Classing Up the Joint: Character Builder

 Something different today, we take a look at class building as that is something I have started experimenting with. OC to come soon^tm?

By Todd Leback

Third Kingdom Games

Premise: If you want to build your own custom classes for Old-School Essentials or any B/X based game then this supplement aims to give you all the tools you need.

What do we get here?

 Over 12 pages we get the maths for how to make new classes with one example for a monstrous class.

 Usability/formatting

 Building classes for OSE and other B/X games is not exactly a science but thanks to a product like this it gets fairly close. Thanks to a mathematical approach and the numbers provided you should be able to make something that is not completely broken.

 It is easy to find what you are looking for thanks to the brief nature of the writing along with the use of paragraphs, bolding and bullet points. Everything is laid out in the right order so you can work through building a character class easily.

 Now the problem with this product is that it lacks a bit in explanation and example for those of us less familiar with the B/X chassis. There are something I am left scratching my head over and I am not sure if it is an issue with OSE or this product. For example the fighter in OSE does not appear to use what this document calls the fighter saving throw matrix. What is up with that?

 There are some other areas I would have liked a bit more guidance on too such as exactly how many special abilities or restrictions you should load up on a class. I am sure you could hunt through the OSE classes to figure this out but it would be nice if this product held your hand a bit more.

 Portability

 Obviously this product is tied to Basic descended games, thankfully there are a lot of them knocking about so you will get a fair amount of use out of it. Nothing in here is specific to any particular setting.

 Recommendation

 Given that this product only costs 50 cents there is little holding me back from recommending it. That being said do be aware you do need familiarity with the system we are working with to really put this to work.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/304557/Classing-Up-The-Joint

 I am going to try to get round to reviewing The Welsh Piper's offering on this topic some time in the near future for comparison.

Bull Temple Cavern

 By Clerics Wear Mail

Basic

Premise: A temple dedicated to a bull god.

What do we get here?

 Coming from a blog post this is a 2 level dungeon split over 16 rooms, the pdf is 6 pages.

Usability/Formatting

 I really like that that the maps on the same page as the room descriptions so you always know where you are. There are even small inserts from the map when the main map is not on the same page.

 Room descriptions are single paragraphs, brief writing gives you the key information concisely. The writing is more functional than evocative. We do not get monster stats in the pdf but references for where to find them which is something. 

Portability

 There is nothing in the way of hooks and little to tie this adventure to any setting. Very much this is a case of a plop down dungeon than a fully formed adventure but given this is a free offering you can not complain too much.

Recommendation

 No fuss drop in dungeon that lacks a bit of personality really.

https://clericswearringmail.blogspot.com/2020/01/bull-temple.html

The Pearl of Pirates' Cove

By RC Pinell

Basic 1st level

Premise: A bunch of caves that used to be used by pirates are now haunted, go raid them or something.

 

What do we get here?

Wanting to be B1 this is a 25 page adventure that covers two levels of a dungeon with about 42 locations.

Usability/Formatting

To start with there a page full of long paragraphs detailing the backstory of the adventure in prose which is just annoying to hack through if you are planning to run the adventure. Then we get a set of rumours and advise to let the players pick information from the tavern in town although we get precious little information about the town and provided with no NPCs. “Just make it up” the author says, if we wanted to make it up would we be using a premade adventure?

Once you get through the preamble you are told that you have to read the whole adventure then go back and stock it with monsters and treasure yourself. There is a list of generic monsters and treasure provided for your homework assignment which is not cutting down anyone's prep time really.

This whole thing is a chore to slog through and a chore to prep. Even the author gets bored and gives up on labelling rooms as we are told XX-XXXI are just natural caves with nothing in them.

Portability

In favour of the adventure is that you can easily plug into any world or location, mostly because it comes with nothing to hang it's hat on. The most we get in terms of flavour is the local town being called Bottom-Jam which just, really?

Recommendation

There is no way I would recommend this adventure, it is more interested in telling you what alignment characters you should allow rather than actually making it easy for you to run an adventure.

AJ1 Fugitive

 

By Alex Johnson

Self Published

Basic Levels 1-3

Premise: An evil cleric has broken out of a village jail and it is on the PCs to catch him.

What do we get here?

 Eleven pages detail six encounters of a short adventure. Added in at the end are a few examples of curses however they may not even come up in the adventure.

Usability/Formatting

 I like that the adventure gives you all the XP totals up front and gives you different monster options for combat encounters so there is some flexibility in the product.

 Unfortunately the adventure is just blocks of text in paragraphs that could have been better broken up and bolded to make it easier to pick out information on the fly. There is a real lack of hook for the adventure, it is designed so the adventure could well be dropped into any village the PCs are passing through but there are no rewards and little incentive for them to get involved as written. Some NPCs in the starting village with some personality might have been a good start for hooking the players in.

 To go along with the lack of rewards the adventure is a railroad and the bad guy is supposed to get away at the end making the whole thing pretty unsatisfying all round.

Portability

 There is nothing stopping you from plopping this adventure down anywhere. I suppose you could run this easily as a convention game, that would probably be the main use for it.

Recommendation

 I would not bother with running this one, it does not have anything you can not come up with on your own and has nothing to really recommend it on. The adventure is short and free so easy for you to scope out and make up your own mind on.

https://www.dragonsfoot.org/php4/archive.php?sectioninit=CD&fileid=161

D100 Heretical texts

 

Something different today, a bit of original content to mix things up. When your players want to know what is on the shelves of an evil NPC here are some options for you.

1	The Foul Teachings of the Devil Marduk
2	Tome of Deep Whispers
3	Lost Gateways of the Void
4	The Journal of Corrupted Secrets
5	Liber Mysteria Prohibitus
6	The Journal of Despicable Necromancy
7	Liber Sanguis
8	The Secret Teachings of Sedit the Foul
9	The Grimoire of Abominable Prophecies
10	The Book of Lost Truths
11	Liber Abominabilis
12	Liber Inscrutabilis
13	The Tome of Twisted Shadows
14	Rimmon's Study of Corrupted Time
15	Despicable Gods of the Void
16	Studies of the Insane Verse
17	St. Jasper's Visions of Below
18	The Grimoire of Forbidden Night
19	Calcazar's Study of the Dark Spirits
20	Nergal's Journal of Corruption
21	Codex Daimonas
22	Liber Corruptionis Mentis
23	The Witch's Grimiore of Corrupted Runes
24	The Grimoire of Sickly Mutation
25	Writhing Horrors of the Deep
26	Despicable Diseases of the Ancient Ones
27	Thamuz's Study of Wicked Curses
28	The Loathsome Treatise of Blood Manipulation
29	Codex Nosos
30	Teachings of the Diseasemancers
31	Captain Horgath's Journal of Voyages on the Seas Below
32	The Tome of Lingering Death
33	Algar's Treatise on Void Speech
34	The Tome of Life Extension By Vile Means
35	The Tome of Burning Poisons
36	Liber Interitus
37	Treatise on Horrid Decay
38	Codex Chronos
39	Scribblings of a Shattered Mind
40	Whispers of the Sea Spirits
41	The Book of Devilish Magicks
42	Moloch's Journal of Imposed Thoughts
43	Teachings of the Pus Demon
44	Abominable Verses of Hell
45	Balmon's Study of Foul Minds
46	Liber Corpus
47	The Prohibited Verses of St. Magdalena the Betrayer
48	The Book of Demonic Incantations
49	Treatise on Abhorrent Uses of Time
50	The Grimoire of Corrupted Tides
51	Liber Necromantia
52	The Book of Vile Tongues
53	The Tome of Voiceless Speech
54	The Journal of False Dreams
55	Treatise on the Divine Lies
56	The Tome of Soul Erosion
57	The Grimoire of Demonic Gifts
58	The Tome of Nightmares
59	Liber Mortem
60	The Book of Shadow Speech
61	Liber de Falsa Prophetia
62	Bile's Treatise on the Vile Plans of Hell
63	Translations of the Demon Words
64	The Witch Verse of Torment
65	The Tome of Veiled Doorways
66	Teachings of the Loathsome Blood Drinker
67	The Grimoire of Prohibited Conjuration
68	Krozygar's Passages of Mind Twisting
69	The Grimoire of Death Magicks
70	Yubei's Journal of Despicable Prophecies
71	Liber Venenum
72	Codex Phobia
73	The Book of False Stars
74	The Tome of Angelic Transgressions
75	The Grimoire of Suffering and Pestilence
76	Liber Contemptus
77	Teachings of the One From Beyond Time
78	The Grimoire of Mind Manipulation
79	Teachings of the Vile Coven
80	The Songs of Forbidden Reversal
81	The Tome of Stolen Flesh
82	The Codices of Infernal Manipulation
83	Archmage Zanfer's Treatise on Hellish Allies
84	The Tome of Deep Incantations
85	Rituals of Forbidden Demon Worship
86	The Grimoire of Transgressor's Conjurations
87	Death's Horrid Teachings
88	Warped Words of the Chained Horror
89	Liber Obscurum
90	Liber Ritualia
91	The Book of Unfathomable Lies
92	The Songs of Twisted Decay
93	Gorgo's Pages of Blood
94	The Tome of Devilish Sacrifices
95	Xethon's Study of Necrotic Beings
96	The Book of Horrors To Come
97	The Abhorrent Codices of Blood Rites
98	The Voidmancer's Verses of Binding
99	Liber Diabolus
100	Rituals of the Lost Night Walkers

The Isle of Forgotten Gods

 

By Chance Dudinack

Self Published

B/X levels 3-5

Premise: Explore the island of a fallen civilisation whose gods left them long ago.

What do we get here?

 We have a 15-location point crawl that comes with two dungeon areas, one which has 25 keyed locations while the other has 10 keyed locations.

Usability/Formatting

 Everything you need to run this adventure on the fly is here. You get the maps up front, monster stats supplied at the appropriate time and succinct writing that gives you the needed information while being easy to expand on.

 There are some fun magic items and plenty of information that brings the location to life. Nearly everything makes sense when it comes to the setting apart from the fact that one of the points on the point-crawl is a village that does nightly human sacrifices, given the size of the location I am not sure how they are sustaining their need for so many people to sacrifice.

 The major omissions here are a lack of scale on the maps and a few NPCs to flesh out the starting location. You can figure out the scale from the text descriptions of rooms where combat is likely to take place but it would have been much easier to just grid the maps. I am sure it is easy enough to come up with NPCs for the starting location it just would have been a huge help to have some and save anyone running this adventure some work.

 One other minor quibble is that you do not get much in the way of faction play once you finally of get to the major dungeon of the adventure. I think there is enough going on in terms of interactivity in the dungeon to over look the lack of factions though.

Portability

 Being flavoured as a Mesoamerican rainforest adventure you might have some issues dropping this into your campaign depending on what you are running. Having a strongly themed adventure is always a big plus even if it does come as a double edged sort when it comes to portability.

 I love seeing something like this with a different flavour, it would be great to run as a short campaign or one shot. Likely you will need your PCs to be off on a sailing adventure to plop this in as a stop off on their path.

Recommendation

 Easy to run and full of flavour I would recommend this adventure, for $5 you will get a good amount of play out of it if you can find somewhere to fit it in.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/295092/The-Isle-of-Forgotten-Gods