Everybody in Hedgebird knows that the old DeMay orphanage is haunted, but that did not stop the Perseville family from moving to town and buying the place. Nor did it stop the Tarnak boys from venturing inside. Now the children are trapped inside, and to get them out the heroes must confront terrible ghosts from the orphanage’s past.
"Good Little Children Never Grow Up" is a horror themed adventure for five characters levels 4-5. You can run it either as a one shot adventure or as part of a larger campaign.
It features:
3 Combat Encounters
1 New Template
1 New Haunt
2 New Magic Items
NOTE: This is the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game version of the adventure. "Good Little Children" is also available in a 4E compatible version.
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Fulfilled immediately.
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This short little horror-adventure is 25 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC (also featuring 3 little maps), 1 page SRD, leaving 21 pages of content, so let's check this out.
This being a horror-adventure, the following review contains SPOILERS. Potential players might wish to jump to the conclusion.
Still here?
All right! "Good little Children never grow up" begins like many horror-adventures on a dark and stormy night, with the PCs fighting wolves. What is not necessarily normal is the fact that the PCs will have visions and, via one hook or another to an abandoned orphanage, most likely to save the sons of a local farmer who went there to meet the new neighbors who moved into the old orphanage. Unbeknownst to the new residents, the orphanage is a place of terror - once run by the deeply traumatized Granny DeMay, she "delivered" children from ever losing their innocence and thus "protecting" them from the rigors, hardships and traumas of adult life in a twisted take on the trope of lost innocence. One of the girls, once she figured out what Granny exactly does, sacrificed herself to be buried alive by the other children with Granny and at least keep her fellow orphans alive. She and Granny haunt the house to this day. Possessed by Granny, the new lady of the house killed her husband and now the ghost of Granny once again wants to keep children from growing up. Enter the PCs.
Good horror-adventures are hard to do and on 21 pages, this offering does not have that much space to develop. But oh how it's done.
8 pages, containing a total of 45 handouts support the DM to bring to life the horror of the situation: One of the PCs is chosen by the child and has corresponding visions, one player will be tormented by visions and possession attempt by Granny, one will receive visions from an intelligent weapon (provided the PCs find and use it) etc. Combine that with Granny's creepy insinuations, her very own song she tends to hum when killing children and the ability to enslave children and set them upon the PCs and we have not only an adventure that rewards non-lethal combat solutions, but also provides an atmosphere of iconic dread not often seen in adventures. The pdf includes a new template, the Granny-possessed creature.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are good, although I didn't like some blank spaces on the handout-pages. Layout adheres to the classic b/w-2-column-standard and the b/w-artwork is stock and fitting. The pdf has no bookmarks, which is a minor downer. Content-wise, this adventure is top-notch and delivers a supremely creepy atmosphere for a very low price. Author Matthew J. Hanson delivers a disturbing yarn that is a sheer pleasure to run and the 8 pages of handouts rock. However, not all is fine. I would have loved to get a player-friendly map without numbers to hand out to my players. Also, it is noticeable that this adventure once was created for 4th edition: While most sections have been professionally converted, a dragonborn (instead of half-orc) slipped past the editors. Worse, the decision on whether the villain of the piece is put to final rest depends on being destroyed via "radiant" damage, necessitating a DM to devise another way to determine success or failure in the final encounter. Usually, I'd mark the adventure down to 3 or even 2.5 stars for this rather significant glitch, but the writing is simply too good - this yarn of gothic horror would score the full 5 stars sans the glitches. With them, I'll grit my teeth and scale down to 4 stars with a definite recommendation for any fans of creepy scenarios.
Well, I can and will eventually. It just never hurts to ask, especially with new publishers. I had some rather bad experiences where I DID think that I wasted my money. *cough* A.G.E.S. Games *cough* Alvena *cough*
