Product Review: BENEATH: The Inverted Church

BENEATH: The Inverted Church


For: System Agonistic (your choice of OSR/ D&D Clone)

By: Justin Sirios

Cost: 15.99 print 6.66 kindle edition

http://www.severedbooks.com/ (redirects to amazon for purchasing)

This is an adventure; so spoilers ahead.

The book itself had some wonderful cover art of the primary NPC, and is bound a the unique size of 8.5 x 8.5 inches.  The pages are a newsprint pulpy paper which gives it a rough feel and slightly grey coloration to the pages, but it wasn't off putting, as the pages felt durable.  The black and white interior art is crisp and detailed as well.  As a result from the moment you pick up and flip through the book you FEEL like this is going to be a different product.  It is clearly labeled as an 18+ product, and it is.  As a change of pace from many "adult" products the art is not what makes the book adult.  The actual content of the adventure and the choices the players have to make are.

The adventure starts off with the hook to get the players involved, and doesn't fall into the trope of a map or a McGuffin the players are to quest for.  Rather, something very strange and horrible has happened and it gets the PCs to start questioning what has happened.

The adventure has a good mix of combat, traps, and non-combat encounters.  The primary shtick of the dungeon is that lewd acts have to be performed to advance through mirror-doors throughout the dungeon.

The "big bad" at the end of the adventure has been luring people into the dungeon and converting them to a hedonistic path as part of a plan to breed the perfect race- by having everyone blended.  I like this because the monster isn't just a thing that is fought, it is the reason for the story.
As a result the majority of the encounters within are the very townspeople that the players should be saving.  Only a few of them are willing to be saved and can leave on their own, meaning the players are stuck between killing them or taking a bunch of unwilling prisoners as they continue on and THEN have to deal with the real combat encounters.

The book has a convenient list of tables and information at the end as well as important information in bold or otherwise marked as you go through the adventure so you don't miss something important.

The book does have some drawbacks though.
The first is formatting.  Section headers are on occasion the last thing on a page and Tables are often cut off part way though a page requiring you to flip pages to use them effectively.

The second is that the end feels cheap.  There is more to the UnDungeon but the players are prevented from entering it by the very same mirror-door they have been encountering the whole dungeon but it just doesn't work.  This is further aggravated by a bunch of soldiers from a nearby battle showing up and descending into the dungeon.

Then you are hit with it "to be continued" Yes this is listed as book 1 from the title page, but I've never met with something so game disturbing.  The adventure leaves off at such a point, that I can't logically get the players to go and adventure somewhere else and I can't do anything else here without voiding what will occur in the future books.  So until future books come out I expect it would be better to just tie off the adventure by letting the party kill the monsters and ending the threat.

There are some situations that are oddly presented in the book.  Like being exposed early in the UnDungeon to people who don't know how the UnDungeon works only to later encouter other townspeople who are hanging out just beyond a trap with no good reason to be.  I mean did they walk there and someone set the trap behind them? Were they all just lucky and didn't set them off when undoubtedly the players will?  I get it I'm nit-picking now, but the lack of logic bothers me, and I'm going to have to come up with a reason that makes sense within the context of the game.

My final gripe is some special encounters.  These are random and require a special trigger to occur but the monster design is just infuriating.  The area regenerates the players, and some of the encounters have 250 or more hit points.  As a result the game will be reduced to a long slog fest of boring combat rounds unless they think to escape the fight. all together. The end feeling is that these battles are not meant to be won, just an excuse to kill PCs in the most un-creative way the adventure has to offer.

Maybe my gripes will be answered in future books as right now we only get to see a fraction of the whole idea.

All this being said, the adventure has some really neat and novel ideas.  Presents some easy to convey visually stunning moments for players to encounter, and will definitely be unlike anything a party has previously encountered. It does a decent job of trying to tell a story even if it leaves it unfinished at the moment, which thankfully can be easily corrected with the production of the rest of the trilogy.

Product Review: Blood in the Chocolate

For: Lamentations of the Flame Princess

By: Kiel Chenier

Cost: 19.25 Euro  print+pdf

http://www.lotfp.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=237

$7.99 pdf

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/199571/Blood-in-the-Chocolate?term=blood+in+&test_epoch=0

Sometimes the stars align just right.  In this case it was that my daughters discovered Willy Wanka and the Chocolate Factory and in that wonderful way kids do have been wanting to watch it again and again, just about this time LotFP released Blood in the Chocolate.  As I’m a glutton for punishment the local market has been having a sale on Milka bars- so my life has been awash in chocolate as of late.

First and foremost Blood in the Chocolate is “inspired by” the work of Roald Dahl (or perhaps more accurately the film my kids have been watching).  The quotes are because it IS NOT a D&D adventure that apes the story you know.   It is far far darker. 

The Chocolate factory deals very little with the production of chocolate.  We see the river where it is mixed, and plenty of experimental rooms of whimsy, and find that despite being a chocolate factory Wonka is in fact very diverse in the realm of candy and confection production. 

Blood in the chocolate on the other hand pays a slightly more realistic approach to chocolate production.  Other confections are ignored, however much of the factory is just that- a factory.  Although a pre-industrial age setting, it brings all the fun of “The Jungle” to the table top.   Grinding gears and molten chocolate are a subtle danger at nearly every turn (well, subtle until your scarf is pulling you closer to the gears, or 3^rd degree burns on your hand and face from trying to drink the stuff like the kid in the movie did…)

The best part of the whole thing is that as weird and twisted as the adventure can be, it is all done with subtlety.  There isn’t any obvious encounter- no monster to fight when you kick down the door.  You do have a villain and a mob of fanatical followers though, so things can go south very quickly.  Of course they can also go south if you are nice too.  If for some reason the players completely ignore the adventure it can still have it subtly affect the game as others are affected by the rare side effect of the chocolate.

Unlike Wonka where punishments were doled out to children who needed to learn a lesson, here you almost root for Slugworth to win.  The punishments are doled out indiscriminately (i.e. the players, but hey, the probably broke and entered, and are at least contemplating theft if not murder). And the factory owner of this place, is not spritely or clever, she is mean, vain, and evil.  So then again, perhaps everyone gets what is coming to them after all. 

They layout of the book makes it easy to read, the art is fantastic; complete with a walkthrough of a possible outcome in the .pdf version. 

And yet… it feels like there is a little something missing. 

With the sheer number of mini-minions in the factory, it would have been nice to have some non-combat encounters included with the little guys.  As is they occupy the entire factory and they just seem a bit dry, sure goblins don’t get exposition in adventures either, but these guys are at least pretty benign and possibly helpful as long as the factory owner isn’t directing her wrath at you (then be warned, you could easily end up the victim of blueberry gang bang rape). 

This can easily be solved by a bit of planning on the storytellers part (and really how often do goblins get exposition?)

This adventure is a definite module to pick up though, the familiarity that probably every player has with Willy Wanka makes the changes off putting enough to instill a good sense of creepiness (even without the ferryboat ride) for your players and still be entertaining. 

Like Most LotFP adventures the setting is pretty harsh, and even a party that gets through with no casualties will more than likely come away with several scars (mental and physical).  

1/26/17 update

I came across this and it pretty much captures everything I imagine this module to be:

Product Review: Deep Carbon Observatory

Product Review: Deep Carbon Observatory

From: False Machine Publishing
Cost: 10.00 pdf 13.30 softcover B&W
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/131801/Deep-Carbon-Observatory

Deep Carbon Observatory is very rich on atmosphere.  So much so that "the dungeon" of the adventure only sets up a slight portion of the adventure.  Combat definitely takes a back seat in this adventure, but this isn't to say that it is non-existent or that there is very little threat to the PCs.  In fact there is quite a lot of threat to the PCs.

The book is laid out rather organically. As GM you are introduced to things in much the same way and pace as the players are.  As a result it is a rather "fun" read that had me asking questions and wanting to keep reading to find the answers until the very end where a handy timeline of events serves to tie things together as a sort of "big reveal"  The downside of this is that it is not a quick and easy pick up and run adventure.  Even getting to see "the big picture" as a GM, nothing is outright told to you, you have to figure out a lot of the connections of things on your own.  This is definitely an adventure where as GM you are going to have to be taking notes before, during, and after the adventure. After? I hear you ask.  Yes, the adventure has some definite world affecting consequences.  On the bright side, most of these effects really only occur if the players choose to not be actively engaged in the adventure.  There are several really clever ideas here, but the big take away is that the adventure does not exist in a vacuum frozen in time awaiting the adventurers to awaken it.  The adventure is very organic and could very well resolve itself without any player involvement.

Art is some nice pencil work that conveys a lot of character, the maps have no scale which I feel is a failing.  The authors stress that it is very important to know how many days of food the players have, but provide very little guidance on how long it should take to traverse the various terrain.

From here on out spoilers.  You've been warned.

The adventure is broken into five parts.

The first bit throws the adventurers into the action, and keeps them occupied meeting several colorful characters.  This is a fun different way of introducing the area, and providing one of three hooks to continue on to the rest of the adventure.  Although not overtly stated, probably the most important part of this is to introduce the fact that the area is flooded, and everyone is in bad shape.

The next parts involve the travel up river, then the dam, and the drained lake. All these environments are probably very alien to the players.  The flood has radically changed the "normal" of the path up river.  Things from the lake now traverse the area.  Everything is flooded necessitating travel by boat or a very wet walk for a very long time.  The dam takes the normal dungeon crawl idea and throws it on its side because almost everything has been upturned by the water- traps are already sprung and locked doors are opened.  The drained lake again presents an alien atmosphere of an ecology turned on its head.

and then into the observatory.

I would hope that the PCs would take note of the fact that someone built a dam to keep this place inaccessible under water. Of course that won't keep them out.

Here is a great opportunity to explore the remains of the observatory and the dark elves that once occupied it.

Finally the adventure ends with a timeline of what happened in the past and what will happen if the PCs don't get involved.  So really you could throw this adventure hook at them and have them completely ignore it and then have it come back to bite them in the rear years later in your campaign.
The timeline tracks the progress of another adventuring party interested in the observatory as well as a witch that is an encounter earlier.  With the unfolding of these two parties without PC involvement is really becomes evident that the tracking of time is important in this adventure.  The ration tracking is just as important as there isn't an easy way to re-stock these items and a party may end up quitting the adventure or starving to death if not prepared.


Not every answer is given in the adventure, some  just don't get answered.  What caused the dam to brake, and where did the dark elves go is kind of beyond the scope of the adventure, but may be something to address in your own running of the game.