This week, I’ve taken a well deserved break from RPGs in general: apparently, running a ton of games takes a toll on your creativity. Who could have guessed?
So, instead of our usual fare of rules articles, I’ve decided to do a bit of a product spotlight on a brand new adventure by friend of the Lance, Mihailo Tešić. The Siege of Bonemoor Keep is his first published adventure and only came out this weekend!
Have a look at what Mihailo has to say about the module, and use the link button below to pick it up!
“A funnel is supposed to forge your puny 0-level into a mighty 1-level hero. But how does that happen? What exactly are those events, choices and traumas that shape a lowly gongfarmer into a hard-willed cleric or a grain trader into a sword-wielding warrior?
I wanted to answer that question with an adventure that will provide the players the full range of opportunities I see as essential to OSR, and to all tabletop RPGs, actually. I also wanted provide a plausible event that “commoners” could live through in order to become someone worthy of song – or scorn. And finally, I wanted to supply a relatively straightforward structure, but with many choices that can lead to meaningful outcomes and different endings – various fruits all hanging from the same tree, so to speak.
The adventure begins as the siege of the keep by a mysterious army commences. The characters are recruits from the surrounding lands that the Keep protects, given a shield and a spear and some rudimentary training, now expected to stand against the force of the terrible Thrallmaster. They will have to survive combat against supernatural enemies on the battlements, navigate the web of NPCs and their idiosyncrasies through parlay and good judgement, in order to discover the secret of the Keep, where the adventure comes to its dungeon-delving climax.
It is a longer funnel that can be played over the course of 6 hours, but could easily be split into three shorter sessions – which I suppose makes it a viable choice for tournament play, as a three-round adventure.
The adventure includes alternate rules for 0-lvl character advancement, where overcoming challenges and encounters nets ability increase rewards, in accordance with the ability used to overcome the challenge. This leads to more player investment in the characters as well as characters that tend to have higher relevant abilities when (if) they reach 1st level, which was something everybody in the playtest loved.
My personal appendix N (Appendix M) includes Tolkien, but also Ursula LeGuin, Jack Vance, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Steven Donaldson, Fritz Leiber, China Mieville, but also Gustav Meirink, Borges, Crowley and comics too numerous to mention.”
KitN will be back to our usual programming next weekend!
Cheers,
AMP