Endzeitgeist's page

Great Review, DM!
I guess, I'll have to check this one out once my gaming budget permits.
I think, I'll tone done the shelter-spell, though. level/week seems a bit extreme.

Greetings,
Endzeitgeist

"The Horror of Red Hook" is a a 78 pages pdf.

1 page front cover, 1 page back cover, 1 page credits, 1 ad.

It also includes 4 pregen-investigators for the adventure, each taking up a page.

Being the first in the "After Lovecraft"-series, it also includes the short story "The Horror at Red Hook" by the master H.P. Lovecraft himself as a handout the players are supposed to have read. It clocks in at 18 pages and is a good read.

This leaves 52 pages of adventure for the Keeper.

This adventure has, like many of Lovecraft's protagonists, a terrible legacy to carry: In this case, that the prose of Lovecraft and the fear it evokes. The aim was, more than in other CoC adventures, that it should be transported to an adventure.

Unfortunately, it falls short of this endeavor due to several aspects:

The reasons for the investigators to get involved and how they are supposed to have heard about the original happenings seem too contrived for me: Malone contacts the investigators and send them to a wealthy woman interested in hiring them. Both the woman and Malone don't serve any significant role in the story - wasted potential.

Thereafter, the investigators hunt down an old book. There is one lead, one follow-up, one bum who found the book (featuring the first semi-creepy thing to happen), follow up to Act 2. Linear as it gets.
Some information from the short story can provide additional clues, and, although none of them are essential for the plot, one literally beats you over the head with the "This is the villain"-stick.

After that, we get a house full of cultists, which are red herring enemies. They are not the primary antagonists, but have to be killed none the less. They are generic boring "I cannibalize because I'm a cultist"-guys and even the final fight with the leader (who has no name or personal ambition) is just not creepy. There is no map of the house provided. Another problem. Investigators are prone to trying to get maps and the like of suspect, dangerous areas.

There, the Investigators find a dowsing rod for magic (yawn + potentially problematic in future adventures...) and strange gold.

Yep, that's supposed to be the next lead. It's obvious to follow up once the investigators realized, that this is the clue. If they have managed to pass the gold by, the keeper has to make them notice it.

Accompanying this investigation is a section on the tactics of the antagonists, but when is the keeper supposed to use them? There is no real room for the investigators to have these encounters. If they found the ingot, they'll have the lead almost immediately. If they miss it, they're screwed anyway and the keeper has to improvise. Problem is: The time it takes for the investigators to conduct this investigation in-game may be enough for the attacks. The time it takes out-game is not enough. It's the classic "Ok, you check out all the stores selling x..."-scenario that you usually fast forward and that makes players jittery and bored f you don't. No stats or names of the owners are given, which makes this section even harder on the keeper, having to create places, names and the like for routine work and trying to keep it interesting. Unless they don't manage to catch at least one assailant, the conclusion is more or less irrelevant. Thereafter, it should be obvious for anyone where to go.

The next act is actually the first one that manages to evoke a creepy atmosphere: Here, fast talking, a lingering sense of wrongness and a cool scene provide the first truly awesome scene of the adventure.

Thereafter, we get some shadowing work, fast talking, sneaking, whatever: Everything is possible. A map is not provided, though.

Shadowing the antagonists leads the PCs towards the conclusion of the adventure. How do they know that? Another ambush, this time again by bland run-of-the-mill-cultists like before. The battle is simple and boring and designed to make the antagonists get away. Investigators will feel railroaded.

Then, for no apparent reason, the adventure gets awesome for a brief time: Fast-talking past harmless people (who might even die in any kind of fight due to fragile constitution...), exploring dark tunnels, finding and hearing disturbing things - awesome atmosphere. And an awesome climax to boot -the battle is cool, innovative and tense. Although there is a minor spoiler: An aura does transform some people, but others not. No truly sound reason is given.

However: The final battle uses the constant theme of lost innocence that has been foreshadowed to terrible effect. SPOILER. I don't normally write spoilers in my reviews, but this may actually affect if you and your players enjoy this adventure. The investigators have to kill a child to stop the mythos this time. A child. No way for redemption, no possibility to use her as a sidekick, a responsibility, nothing. Flat out killing a child. The adventure suggests PERHAPS calling for a SAN-check for killing a child. That's the end of the adventure. I'm not faint of heart. I love sick, twisted stuff. I love mature topics and characters. I'd love to see more darker, grittier adventures and purist Cthulhu with its hopelessness and dread. I can't see this one working, though. The investigators are the good guys. Forcing them to kill a child is even in my eyes unacceptable. A page with the option to use her as a morally ambiguous, dangerous ally/reliability, explaining abilities and the like would have been enough. And yes, I get the "Corrupt due to birth"-angle. But no choice? That's just not acceptable for me.

Conclusion:
The investigation is bland and boring and fails to make use of some of its aspects like the cultists. Or Malone. The lack of maps hurts this very linear, non-sanbox-like adventure. Investigators get railroaded throughout the adventure and the climax, while cool, is soured by the child-murder.

If you need an idea for a climax and have money to burn, think about checking it out. If you need ideas for a creepy orphanage, it's worth a peek.
Otherwise, I'd suggest you check out any of the other adventures by SGG - they are all VASTLY superior to this one. Especially "Snows of an Early Winter".

Seriously, I've tried to find something, anything NOT to like in this pdf after realizing that I was inclined to like the topic in the first place (unlike "Wyrd", where I did not know what to expect and "Ironborn" where I was skeptical at best), but I just did not find anything. I found no filler-feat, no filler-spell, the artwork is great and player-friendly. Try as I might, I could not bring myself to voice a kind of criticism that would not be totally hare-brained.
For me, "Restless Souls" is just about perfect, I can insert it as is without any modifications and have found no flaw. It's a masterpiece and for $3.75 cheap to boot. My favorite Rite-product so far.
Steve, reading this pdf really made my day. Awesome work!

I guess you're right. ^^ Helping 3pps is the reason why I rather tend to review 3pp-products instead of mainstream PF-Stuff (apart from some of my Scenario 0-rants). Ah well, I guess I'm going to review Pf-stuff sooner or later, but the others have precedence for now. :D

Also I just copied your section on the NPC's saved me the work. I did add the bit about Tansy. I did it because while I could reference your review here. i couldn't on ENworld or Drivethru and I wanted complete reviews up there. So i just copied it. :)

You're welcome to do so and I hereby give you permission to post my reviews on EnWorld and Drivethru, as I buy most of my stuff here and almost never visit EnWorld. As long as you give me credit for the review, of course. ;)

Well, I'm pleased that I'll probably get my key-less maps in future installments. :)
Don't get me wrong, I love the top ten style lists and my suggestion for "Kavit 101 books" stems from a desire to see more of this goodness - I did not expicitly expect to get more for 2 bucks (it's already a very sweet deal, after all!), but I'd like to see supplemental material for material like this and I'm willing to pay for it. ^^
My favorites were the "Horn of Smog" and the "Slippers of Thief-Snaring".
Just a suggestion: I'll let the spear produce "pyrotechnics"-like effect from every open flame when used. :)

Glad I could be of assistance! I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I do. ^^

Seconded, DM. Especially for Kavit, Bedlam and installments like that, I'd be willing to pay for to get more. ^^

Informative review, as always, DM! I wholeheartedly agree with the fact that the lack of experiments performed etc. is something that keeps the product from being totally awesome, but I'm going to wait for the web-enhancement Steve promised. If the enhancement includes more info on that, I'll modify my review accordingly.
Btw.: Interesting that you looked for templates/creatures for the cat. I just asumed that the cat was supposed to be a old-school Chaosbeast/shoggoth in temporarily stable cat-form or something like that.
But that's perhaps due to the fact that I screwed my players over really badly with just that trick. The "cat" killed 4 PCs and the rest only barely managed to escape from the "nice, old lady" that owned cats...many cats... :D

Great news, Steve!
I'm looking forward to reading the web-enhancement and I'm going to modify my review of the asylum accordingly once I've got it.

Thanks! I'm looking forward to reading your review, DM!

Thank you very much, DM! I've also had the impression that you seem to have approximately the same taste and standards when it comes to RPG-products. I have yet to be disappointed by a product you liked and wrote a review about. ^^
Next on my review-list is "Restless Souls" and after that, I'm going to review the remaining Coc-adventures by Super Genius Games, the stuff by Raging Swan and 2 pdfs by 4 Winds. :)
Day-job and schedule permitting, that is. ;)

Thanks for the recommendation, Alzrius! I already have the Rite Review #1 +#2 and wrote a review on the second one. ^^

Plus: While some people don't seem to like the Victorian painting - art choice, I LOVE them and really like to show them to my players. ^^

Miranda and Steve, this one is nearly perfect! Especially for me as a passionate Ravenloft-DM! It's an awesome piece of work!
I'd really love an additional version of the map without the letters, though. ;) If the pdf included one of those, I'd consider it perfect!

Well, DM has already given some good suggestions, but I'm going to brainstorm a bit anyways:

How do the inhabitants use the warehouse? Do they
-topple boxes
-swing on chains/ropes
-place a sniper on the roof (ideal target for the strife elemental!)
-climb to the roof via railings, ropes and the like?
-care about the skeleton?

Does the area of the supervisor with desk, chair and the like have a lower roof than the warehouse? If so, is it possible to stand on it or does one break through?

Some quick and dirty Skill-DCs would have gone a long way there - It's easy to improvise stuff like that on the spot, sure, but it's always nice to have some guidelines.

What about the past of the warehouse? If some kind of tragedy happened there (perhaps caused by Bumpfield in another disguise or the strife elemental?), how did it influence the reputation of the place? If there was a tragedy, why hasn't it been investigated and resolved?
Is there perhaps still a hidden (perhaps extra-dimensional?) cache of items that has not yet been found? (Would explain why Bumpfield lingers there. Perhaps he does not want it to be found...)

Stuff like that would have made the warehouse awesome in my eyes!
I hope that has been helpful! ^^

Again I apologize; The Rogue's Gallery Tavern and The Next were written and released before there ever was a Pathfinder Rpg, now we have updated The Rogue's Gallery to the Pathfinder RPG, and we did assign an update for The Next Inn but what came in were two core character classes (they were not our usual complex statblocks with combinations of templates, prestige classes, new feats, spells and/or magic items) I found these to be unacceptable so I rejected that update and its been on the back burner due to existing products taking precedence. The Next Inn will be updated, once I get some free time,

Oh and when we do the updates, they are free for our existing customers.

Now that is good news, Steve! I'll be sure to update my review once the new and revised "Next Inn" comes out.

I also think it's great customer service to provide the updates for free!
And if Rogue's Gallery was systemless, I have high hopes for the Next Inn, as the Rogue's Gallery got 5 stars from me. ^^

That's really a pity, both the financial flop of the creature and the fact that mature/potentially offensive content won't be put out. Oh well, it's still a damn cool critter! ^^

Thanks! :) I can say the same about your "Heroes of the Jade Oath" review: It made me actually want to check out the book and, gaming budget permitting, I plan to so.
Last couple of months were rough on my budget: PF, Coliseum Morpheuon, Tales of the Old Margreve, Print of Imperial Gazetteer, Print of Sunken Empires, Slumbering Tsar...Ow. ;D

Cheers and greetings from Norway!

Yeah actually helpful, detailed reviews tend to help a lot when trying to decide whether or not to buy a book/pdf or not. It would be awesome if we managed to start a trend there! ^^

Thanks for the kind words, DM! ^^ Glad you found the review useful!

Thank you very much, DM! I have enjoyed your reviews for quite some time and always considered them to be very informative and helpful! :)

I'd normally agree! The rule of cool should definitely supersede rules concerns. Plus: I think it's awesome that you wanted Ironborn to be backwards compatible!

It's just a pet peeve of mine and I tried to make that clear in the review.

It's awesome work and I really do like the race, even though I hated the warforged.

Your designs rock! I'm looking forward to "Gargoyles". ^^

You're welcome, Steve!

I'm really enjoying your products and hope to see more cool mosnters like that!

Some CoC adventures by SGG and your Restless Souls and ECSs are next on my review-list. ^^

(And I'm totally stoked about the upcoming asylum: I've been waiting for something like that for ages!)

Thank you for you very helpful comments on the Wyrd, Steve!

You are, of course, right: As long as a given world includes Ogre Magi as standard creatures, Wyrd are easy to integrate.

Thank you especially for your feedback on integrating them into RL and Midgard. I was also going for the Shadow Fey approach (Gwydion as a substitute for the dark emperor), but nevertheless will that be a bit of work. I'll build two variants of wyrd: Mortal Wyrd for PCs to play and immortal wyrd with cold iron DR and so on that are more on the fey-side of things. I plan to use them as a bridge between the core and my ravenloftized version of Rokugan. ^^

As far as Midgard is concerned, I think I'll go with a different approach: I'll make them traditional enemies of the black adepts in KanThaiPan, allies of the old gods and spirits and rebels against the yore of the dark trinity.

Actually you would be surprised at first I was worried about that too, but looking at the High level Wyrd in our playtest they were actually hindered with the costs because they wanted to spend every copper piece on equipment and had to make an agonizing choice (at least the player acted that way).

*laughs* Yeah, I can see players acting that way. XD

I would think that dispel magic would have less of an impact on dispel in a low-magic campaign, since there is not much magic to dispel?

Well, my experience has been that while there is not that much magic to dispel, in low/rare magic campaigns it actually can be very important to be good in dispelling/penetrating SR. IF the PCs stumble across a magic creature, it is guaranteed to be deadly and the PCs, lacking wands, potions, scrolls and so on are forced to use their capabilities.

My experience was that in such campaigns PCs tend to fear magic and thus try to prepare accordingly.
In all my low/rare magic campaigns I sooner or later had a PC with spell penetration/greater spell penetration and so on, that's why, at least in my experience, the +2 to dispel-checks is more decisive than the item-identification. For other campaigns that might not be true, but its my experience. ^^

Well, although I'm not a big fan of PCs with SR, I don't have a problem with the Wyrd's SR, as, in my opinion, it is nicely balanced.
Even with the feat "Wyrd Resistance", they don't get too powerful. (Thanks to the level restriction.)

The one part I really consider "a bit stronger" than the e.g. elven counterpoint would be Wyrd magic:
While the second bonus of the elves (+2 spellcraft to identify properties of magic items) is not that often decisive or vital for PC survival, a plus 2 to dispel checks can be just that. And will probably be used more often in rare magic items/low-magic campaigns.

While the wyrd-feats are very well-balanced (level + blood requirements keep everything under the DMs control, abilities are balanced just fine, although the necessary money is rather a token gesture for high-level PCs...), however, they are geared rather towards high fantasy than low fantasy play.
Spell-like abilities via feats - fits perfectly with the exotic flair of the wyrd and the Asian fluff. Makes it hard to integrate them into settings like Ravenloft or Midgard, though.

That is what cost one half star

If we knew more about the background (I loved the first person introduction and prose!), this MIGHT actually get easier.

I had to make the decision on whether to give Wyrds 4 or 5 stars and due to the fact that I will have to think very hard on how to implement the race into my campaign (and implement I will - I REALLY like it!) and that the race can be hard to implement in rather low magic settings, I settled on the 4 stars, with the disclaimer for rare magic/low-power campaigns. It's an awesome job of pushing the boundaries and a really imaginative race! Although I always hated the Warforged of Eberron, I am now seriously considering picking up Ironborn. (I'd make them Clockwork-modified humans in ym setting, but that's cosmetic...)

You made my day some months ago, Hyrum!
On the fateful day that I bought all of the SGG CoC books on drivethru-Rpg. ^^

Once I get the time on my hands, I'm going to write more reviews. :)

I'm looking forward to reading more CoC-goodness from SGG! *nudgenudge* ;D

You're welcome, Lou.
I not only liked, the adventure, I loved it.
It's possible that this one may become a helloween-classic like the original Ravenloft module: Thanks to the variability and the extreme replayability, it won't get boring for the Keeper. Awesome work!

If you have bought the "old" 3.5. version of ST1, you get the first parts of the subscription refunded.
The subscription entails the final, epic hardcover and is PFRPG-compatible. ^^

The subscription will entail all 3 parts of ST with updated PFRPG stats and all the goodies Greg and Bill come up with.

Greetings,
Endzeitgeist

Hej Jason!

I bought this at my FLGS some years ago and I don't recall a map booklet, so no, you are not missing out on anything there.

You can download the Blemmyish Account at the necromancergames homepage in the category "product support" as well as two isometric maps for the tomb of Rahotep.

I think you only took a look at "Free Stuff", that's where "Set's Daughters" can be found. ^^

Unfortunately I'm not at all savvy when it comes to Greyhawk (always been more a RL, Planescape, etc. kinda guy), but I bet someone will come up with something.

There are some ideas given in the book, if I recall correctly, though.

Have fun with this epic, I hope I could be of assistance.

Greetings,
Endzeitgeist

Awesome!

I'm also in for a subscription. :D

I'd prefer an epic hardcover in PFRPG-Rules, though. ^^

@d20pfsrd & Pale:

Your help is greatly appreciated! Anything that potentially boosts the sales of ST1 brings us closer to our goal of enabling Greg to publish ST 2 + 3. Thank you very much for your offer!

Greetings,
Endzeitgeist

That's exactly what I was trying to suggest, Greg!

I'd just love to see your adventures and if we get additional goodies: All the better! :D

Regards,
Endzeitgeist

@sharoth:

You can pick a copy of ST 1 here:
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=64632

I agree with you, DM. I would be content with a fund-like model and not necessarily require Greg to modify the sequels. (Although some minor modifications might be tempting...) ;)

First of all: Thank you for writing ST1!
Although I have enjoyed all of the "lost" books when I purchased them on their release, Slumbering Tsar 1 has been my favorite, tops.

I'd be willing to surrender any kind of influence normally associated with a patronage project and just pay for having the completed books.
Also, once drivethru's PoD FINALLY kicks off, the physical copy shouldn't be a problem anymore.

I wouldn't even require fancy artwork or the like (although it is always a nice plus to have). I was e.g. totally content with the hand-drawn maps for "The Spider God's Bride". Everything apart from some maps and an edited text is kind of a bonus for me.

That being said, I am really hoping that ST 2 and 3 can somehow be published via a patronage-like publishing option. I also hereby assure you, that I'd be willing to invest quite some money in a patronage for the books.

Just so that you know I'm serious: I will keep 300$ (150$ per Book) of my gaming budget on the sidelines for the possibility of an option like that. That is how much I want to see these books. I'd even be willing to pay more, but then I'd want them signed.
To honor the traditions of Orcus, in blood, of course. ;)

Just kidding. About the blood, not the signing. ;D

Thank you very much for the quick response!

I hope the demon lords see it fit for the mortal populace to tremble under the terrifying glory of ST 2 and 3...

Greetings from Norway,
Endzeitgeist

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I have loved and enjoyed ST:1 and I'm looking forward to seeing the two sequels.

However, lurking in some discussions and gathering the pieces, I am getting the impression, that due to some facts, we may not see them.

The lack of PoD hurts the sales and the fact, that is has not yet been updated to PFRPG doesn't help either.

However, I really hope to see the sequels, and thus would like to propose earnestly something DitheringFool wrote in one of the threads:

If we don't get to see a regular release of the sequels, what about a patronage project as a kind of alternative?

Do you guys think it would be an option that the demon lords would consider? Greg, would you be willing to consider such a model?

I'd be willing to pay quite a bunch of bucks to hold them both in my hands...

What do you think?

Greetings,
Endzeitgeist

I've bought all the PDFs when they were released and I'd instantaneously jump at any kind of patronage option, at any possibility really, to see ST 2 and 3 published. While I'd prefer an updated PFRPG version of the whole series (I think it would improve sales), I frankly don't really care about whether it's 3.5. or PFRPG. I'd be willing to throw in some serious bucks for a patronage project ST 2 and 3.