A Pathfinder Roleplaying Game adventure for 4-6 characters of level 4.
Jean Lemaistre, celebrated cavalier of the Order of the Lily, defeated the vampires of Château Rougemord many winters ago, though he himself perished in the process. Having no wish to be brought back to life, in common with most cavaliers of his Order, Lemaistre was entombed near the village of Sans-Secours, close to the château, with all of his possessions either bequeathed to the Order or sent back to his family.
All, that is, except for his banner, the “Fleur de Lis”, which inexplicably failed to return, and which the Order is now paying you handsomely to retrieve for them from Lemaistre’s tomb, which is presumably where it ended up.
So wrapped up in warm winter clothing you have journeyed into the mountains in the hope that the trail that you now seek has neither gone too cold nor regained any of its former danger. After all, it has been fifty years…
Four Dollar Dungeons are standalone adventures designed to be logical, entertaining, challenging and balanced, and easily integrated into any campaign world.
Each adventure has enough material to last three or more playing sessions and enough experience to raise four characters of the appropriate level up by one extra level. Treasure is commensurate with the encounter challenges faced. Scaling information is included for adventuring parties of five or six.
Although this adventure is set around a snow-capped mountain range most of the action takes place within the cold stone walls of the Château de Rougemord.
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After running this party through Panataxia last year, and liberally stealing encounters from Journey to Cathreay, after a pretty long delay (we're on a slow XP track) I was pretty excited to do this creepy-as-anything haunted mansion with a truly epic finale. We just finished the module, and it was superb, but with just a few bits that could be polished a bit more.
More details below, but: overall, this was amazing, as was Panataxia. I didn't fully run Journey to Cathreay, but the parts I stole were great. I'm considering scaling up Holy Island for higher levels for later in the campaign, and don't see any way that I'm not going to run some of the other modules in some other campaign. But: if $4 Dungeons makes some higher-level adventures, I will certainly buy and probably run them. Highly recommended.
**** Spoilers follow ****
**** Players, don't read this ****
**** For real ****
**** It's really cool and will be less cool if you're not surprised ****
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The meta-strategy of getting the party actually scared worked pretty well, in our group that tends to have a fairly detached tone. (By comparison, the grisly section of Rise of the Runelords did nothing for us in terms of horror.)
A report of how our playthrough went, some of them minor flaws and some of them just cool things that happened:
– The (4-person) party was level 5; I tried to keep them at 4 in order to run this, but it just didn't happen. I scaled up by giving out the party-of-6 template and mostly applying the "advanced" template (+2 to rolls, +4 AC, etc) to everything. This worked okay, but definitely needed some on-the-fly adjusting.
– The month of acclimation: my party was very reluctant to do this. They wanted to set out for the chateau, fatigue be damned, until I pretty heavy-handedly pushed them not to with NPCs. This may have been related to the way I changed the plot hook to make sense with the larger campaign, but a month of waiting around for this simple job seems like it'd be daunting for many parties.
– Given the ravens and tales of vampires and whatnot, my party was absolutely convinced that the guest house would be haunted. When I slip-of-the-tongued "ghost house," there was no way they weren't believing it. That was fun, and absolutely played into the overall structure of the module.
– In that month: it's kind of strange that essentially every named NPC is male, other than (a) a hag, (b) a teenager who makes a false accusation of sexual assault (ick), and (c) two wives of other NPCs who are both named Danielle (!). I guess that some people's fantasy style is more "realistic" to medieval gender norms, but that's not how my group plays or the Pathfinder standard. I just changed Paul Barras to Pauline, which helped. (I suppose this could also be because of the Doctor Who-themed names; I don't know, haven't watched that episode.)
– When Jules leaves the party at the mausoleum – huh? Why would he go off on his own but insist it's not safe for the party to do so? No way would my players accept that, so I had him stay overnight with them (and then only narrowly survive the dragon attack).
– Nothing really came of the hag, because they saw her skulking in the woods in kid form and then (because they're sneaky) caught up to her, asked her about herself, and then pretty much went inside the chateau and didn't come back until everything went to hell. I didn't force it, but it's a loose end that didn't really work out for us.
– In Rougemord, the geometry of how things are connected wasn't always obvious to me. It might have been better on paper rather than as separate Maptool maps, but I ended up adding a few doors and blocking a few staircases because I just didn't immediately understand how things were supposed to be accessible to one another.
– Relatedly, the geometry of the underground tunnels ("A Change of Identity") was somewhat confusing to me. When is it a tunnel and when is it an open cavern? I don't think I painted a very clear picture of it; an illustration would have been invaluable.
– Speaking of illustrations: the one of the ankheg battle in the graveyard is beautiful, but it shows the caryatid in "friendly" form, which is a little strange because there's a 6/7 chance that it'll be unfriendly when the players see it.
– The contract devil and psychopomp were fun, but it might have been nice to have a little guidance about how much they know about the goings-on around the chateau. If either of them know any details of the Order of the Lily assault, for example, that could change things for the party a lot. The book just describes their attitude without really any clue about their knowledge, which I guessed at on the fly.
– The skeleton duel was pretty fun; one of the players described it as basically a Paper Mario level, which is apt. The party convinced the psychopomp to help move the skeleton audience on to the afterlife, which was cool.
– One of them died from the scarab of death. It so happened that it was a recently-joined character (the previous character had a bad time with a medusa) who the player wasn't liking very much and planning to reroll anyway, so I let it happen. This is well-warned about in the text, but the creator seems to think that it's very foreshadowed. To our party, which happened not to have anyone who speaks Infernal, I really don't feel like they were stupid for opening it. It did raise the stakes, but others who run this, beware that it can easily kill a character who hasn't really done anything too stupid, and strongly consider dropping it if that bothers you.
– Given aforementioned recent medusa encounter, the party freaked out in the petrified children room. That was fun. :)
– The party didn't figure out the good day/bad day system for the caryatids, largely because they rested a night but didn't see the formerly good caryatid turn evil (because it was out of the way), and they hadn't seen the next day's good caryatid when it was bad. This is largely just luck of the draw, but it ended with them triggering almost all of the bad effects before making it through, which taxed an already-hurting party nearly to its limits. Those who run it in the future, I'd strongly consider making the nymph or one of the other very-visible caryatids the "good" ones.
– This was probably largely because of the character death, but the underground sections of the chateau were actually more challenging for the party than the dragon, and much more challenging than the ankheg (which they killed before it even got a turn).
– Despite not figuring out the caryatids, the players figured out what was going to happen when they took the lance (though of course not the full extent of it) beforehand. They still did it, mainly because in my changed quest hook they really needed the lance to move forward with the campaign, but the heartbeat and so on didn't come as a surprise. They did fly down to the node to check it out and try hitting it with the lance (again, level 5; few level 4 parties would be able to do this), but high-tailed it out of there as desired once they figured out there was nothing they'd be able to do.
– The route down from Rougemord to Englouti via Sans-Secours on the sledge doesn't entirely make sense to me; how is that the shortest way down? Maybe it could be drawn on the overview map.
– There's a few more typos here than I expected, a few of which were briefly confusing to me.
The latest 4 Dollar Dungeon-module clocks in at 88 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, leaving us with a massive 84 pages, so let's take a look!
But before we dive into the nit and grit of this module, I feel obliged to point out some peculiar facts of this book: For one, I provided basic advice for a minor crunch-component that is part of the supplemental information in this pdf. I was not involved in any other way with this book. Beyond that, this book follows the format established by 4 Dollar Dungeons - that means you'll get A LOT of supplemental material herein - spells, items etc. Basically, the idea is to provide a holistic experience and minimize your requirement for book-swapping. Additionally, the pdf does provide all artworks in an appendix, so you can easily print out the pieces and utilize them as hand-outs.
Beyond that, the module offers excessive and sound discussions on the nature of fear in roleplaying games, particularly in the fantasy-horror genre - the observations and justifications for the design-process presented here are more than sound - and the same can be said about the detailed advice provided for the more lethal encounters herein. Few modules provide this level of guidance, so yes, GMs will have a pretty easy time running this - also due to handy tables listing CRs, XP, treasures and encounter-difficulty as well as scaling advice. Of course, the by now traditional, detailed random encounters and traveling information are also provided and, as a bonus, monster-lore for teh GM to hand-out to players, can also be found.
All right, so let's see whether Richard Develyn can maintain his streak of absolutely legendary modules. From here on out, SPOILERS reign. Potential players should jump to the conclusion. No, really. Don't spoil a 4 Dollar Dungeon-module - you'd regret it.
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All right...only GMs here? Great!
So can Richard Develyn write classic horror? I'll let the module answer:
"Somewhere deep below the ground lies a vampiric creature of fearsome proportions [...] it stretches its veins, each of them big enough to swallow a tarrasque, through densely packed iron and rock [...] and when these tendrils break through to the earth's crust, a new dynasty of vampires soon comes into being." - and so, an ancient, quasi-cthulhoid menace spawned a vampire dynasty in Maison D'Artère. While subtle, the vampires, supplemented by this vein of terrible power, became a bit too confident - and so, they drew the attention of the order of the lily. Unlike the previous, foolhardy heroes that sought to end the undead menace, the cavaliers did their homework - and targeted a nodule of the vast cthonic creature, plunging the magical lance "Fleur de Lis" into the nodule, pumping poison into the vast creature to destroy it - but such gigantic threats are not easily defeated. Cutting the nodule off from crucial components of the vampiric Great Old One/deity-analogue, the isolated nodule soon turned against the vampires it had spawned - after the blood was drained from the vampires and after the cavaliers had fallen, nothing remained to sate the unholy appetite of the vast creature below castle Rougemord and so, the ancient veins petrified.
The Fleur de Lis, an intelligent weapon with an inflated ego (and a significant paranoia) remained lost, embedded in the ancient, chthonic threat. Now, the order of the lily has tasked the PCs to retrieve the lost item - the first clue of which will force the PCs to explore the tomb of Lemaistre, the fleur's former wielder.
But first, the PCs will get a taste of the walled town of Englouti (full settlement statblock provided), where the module starts, which also will provide a new experience for people familiar with 4 Dollar Dungeons: Know how the cartography was pretty much the one thing not absolutely superb in the 4$D-modules? How it usually was copious, provided for all areas, but just functional? What would you say when I told you that this one sports absolutely stunning, original cartography, both in b/w and full color? Particularly the renditions of the towns and overland maps are absolutely awesome and not something I've seen in many pdfs, much less ones at this price range, with player-friendly high-res versions provided? Yes, particularly for the low price-point, this is more than impressive.
An interesting note regarding the structure of this module would also pertain to the PCs traveling to the village of Sans-secours, from which the fabled tomb can be reached: You see, it's spring (NOT autumn or winter!) and thus, it is perfectly valid for the PCs to spend some time in the local village while they prepare their expedition to the remote tomb - and 3 weeks of slowly escalating weirdness and foreshadowing are provided for the life there, adding a pretty detailed depiction of the local life and allowing the PCs to form connections, rather than plunging head-first into horror. Oh, and they will probably fall to a bait-and-switch there - you see, the tomb does not hold the lance...or any undead for that matter. All the nice holy water and spells they brought...are pretty useless. Heck, the place isn't even really dangerous apart from one particular creature, but that lairs beyond the tomb.
It's when the trail leads to Rougemord, that things get creepy - fast. The castle's vicinity seems to spawn rather disturbing visions and nightmares and the approach of the castle is guarded by a creature that fits with the horror-theme in a slightly less obvious manner; that being said, this adversary can TPK foolish groups and provide a nasty hit-and-run adversary. The castle sports massive amounts of ravens, deadly animals, crawling claws - and something I could hug the module for: There's not a single undead to fear herein. heck, even dueling skeletons are animated objects. The exploration of the castle allows the PCs to partake in the horrors that once graced these halls and much of the place's incantations remain...as do some outsiders. From psychopomps to devils, there is a lot to uncover and indeed, some places can be considered micro-puzzles.
Describing the immense amount of detail that the castle is studded with would probably bloat this review to an extent I do not consider feasible in this case - instead, let's skip a bit ahead: Sooner or later, should the PCs not fall to the castle's dangers, they will find those odd caverns...and finally, the lance. Who is a) annoying and not too smart and b) urging them to pull it free. What nether the lance, nor the PCs know, though, is that with the removal of the lance, a strange heartbeat is heard - and no amount of coaxing can properly jam the lance back inside. From here on out, things become rather dark very fast - all lupine creatures within miles of the castle howl to a blood-red moon, as more and more hungry vampire-spawn are released from the slowly revitalizing walls...and it soon becomes apparent that the PCs are in over their heads...massively.
Fleeing the castle precipice under the auspice of hundreds of snarling, lupine creatures, they can witness a friend fall to the maw of a winter wolf - who also constitutes the boss...but not the end. With the sledge conveniently brought by their erstwhile, now dead ally, the PCs have a sledding chance to escape the doom that has re-awakened in Rougemord in a final adrenaline-laden chase sequence. If you've handled this well, the darkness has returned to Rougemord and a new reign of terror will begin...and your players will look at each other in true horror and whisper "What have we done?"
Now if the apocalyptic awakening of a vast clan of vampires and a chthonic elder vampire thing don't fit your plans, fret not - as the module suggests, there is a certain demiplane of dread all too willing to scour the whole region with its misty tendrils...
As mentioned before, the module has copious supplemental information, including the order of the lily, which actually features some intriguing visuals - and if your players are like mine, they may want to take up the order's vow and seek to right the terrible thing they have unwittingly wrought...
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good -I only noticed pretty minor issues here and there. Layout adheres to 4 Dollar Dungeons' printer-friendly two-column b/w-standard. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience AND in two versions - one for letterpack-format and one for the European A4-format for people like yours truly. The pdf comes extensively bookmarked with nested bookmarks. The cartography's quality (and particularly, the gorgeous isometric renditions of the places) are beyond what you'd expect to see in such a low-cost pdf. The pdf also comes with high-res jpgs for use with virtual tabletops and, as mentioned before, with plentiful materials for the GM.
Richard Develyn has written the most un-gothic gothic horror adventure I've ever read. That's a great thing. Good horror is NOT, contrary to what 99% of found-footage movies believe, being startled. Neither does it derive its impact from being grossed out. Sure, that can be horrific - but it's not horror. Horror may spring from the grotesque and alien, sure, but that's not what this is about, either.
Horror has a psychological component that taps into our psyche with subtle imagery and symbolism - and such symbolism can be found herein - whether it's the idiot child, the twisted mother figure and the like - we may not perceive it consciously, but our unconscious notes these.
Hence, this module is decidedly smart - it begins at a stage of innocence with set-ups, which, while foreboding, mirror a certain innocence that is inherent in the fantasy genre. It then begins to dismantle it - slowly, but surely, escalating the threat by making the backdrop, symbolically-charged and the imagery of the lance and the nodule resonate with a primal sense of horror to which one could ascribe perinatal dread hard-coded into our very being. The season of growth, early spring, and the imagery of wolves and ravens with their symbolic charges further supplements this reading - it's these creatures that are the threat in the end, less so than the intentionally pitiful dragon that is featured in the innocent phase of the module.
Surprisingly, in spite of the lack of undead (a stroke of genius design in a genre that all too often is defined by the erroneous assumption that bones, blood and undead are creepy in and of themselves), this module GETS what makes gothic horror work...and one-ups it. While this can be read as a kind of gothic horror narrative, it could conceivably just as easily be read as a tale of cosmic terror or Lovecraftian proportions - the psychological imagery evoked by the module can just as well be externalized to represent a hostile cosmos of adversaries, a glimpse at a world at best indifferent to the suffering of its inhabitants. Note that usually, such a reading would be terribly at odds with any remotely related to Gothic Horror: Cosmic terror is existential, pertaining to a reality that is removed from the individual, to a sense of complete alienation from everything. Gothic Horror, on the other hand, is a deeply humane kind of horror, one wherein the internal struggles of the psyche are made into externalized threats - it is deeply personal. The only reason both are often confused is a shared array of backdrops and styles, both of which, however, sport vastly diverging meanings and readings - they may occupy the same physical building, but they do not play in the same house.
Horror must grow - and this pdf takes its time with a decidedly slow-paced set-up, one that has its climax hit all the harder - so hard, in fact, that it can become the nexus of a whole campaign, should you choose to embark on this train of thought. It doesn't have to, mind you - but the potential is undoubtedly there. So what do we have here? We have a module that actually understands what gothic horror is about. Yes, at first glance it does read a bit like early Ravenloft modules - something almost decidedly intentional. However, unlike those "bones & blood are creepy"-modules, it shows a distinct understanding why some of the classic Ravenloft modules worked, while others devolved into sucky hack-fests.
This knowledge is not something you could easily convey, either in modules, words or artworks - it bespeaks of a deeper understanding of the genre. To the point, where not even aforementioned pseudo-lovecraftian readings of the subject-matter undermine the impact of this book, allowing for one of the very few cases where one could conceivably generate an overlap between the two without losing the impact on either. And yes, should you choose to, you can make the finale less...impactful...but you'd rob yourself and your group of a truly horrific pay-off of epic proportions.
On a personal level, I read this module with some sense of dread, mainly because I've seen A LOT regarding gothic horror - I've dabbled for many years in all of its forms and representations, not only in the context of gaming. However, Richard Develyn once again displays his vast and diverse talent by portraying yet another genre in a way I have not seen done before - the design-decisions, imagery and brave ending to the narrative conspire to make this module one that will leave your players at the very least gulping, at the best rather shocked...stunned even. Not via a cheap, narrative trick, but by virtue of all those little symbols and pieces falling into place with an almost audible "thwump." This module could have been the plot to a classic tale by Poe, had he had a background of fantasy roleplaying games - what more can you ask for?
One more thing: If my above explanations made no sense to you, feel free to contact me and I'll elaborate. And if you don't care about any part of this, just run it - you'll understand what I meant once you've completed this module...
Richard maintains his streak - this is the 7th module IN A ROW, all wildly different in focus, story, structure and genre, that gets 5 stars + seal of approval AND status as a candidate for my Top Ten of 2015. In case you're wondering - yes, so far ALL of these seven featured in the final top ten for their respective years. These modules aren't simple adventures - they are stimulating, smart art that can be appreciated on a whim or analyzed in-depth. In either case, you won't find a module even close to this level of quality anywhere near this price-point...or beyond that, for that matter. Dear adventure-authors (and particularly, anyone who throws the term "gothic horror" around willy-nilly without knowing what it means), take heed - this is how it's done in a fantasy context without losing the impact the genre requires to thrive.
Reviewed first on endzeitgeist.com, then submitted to Nerdtrek and GMS magazine and posted on Lou Agresta's RPGaggression, here, on OBS and d20pfsrd.com's shop.
I just finished this module with my group, and loved it. I have a few suggestions for minor clarification and so on in my review, if anyone is going to run this and wants a few from-experience tips. :)
I just finished this module with my group, and loved it. I have a few suggestions for minor clarification and so on in my review, if anyone is going to run this and wants a few from-experience tips. :)
Thank you very much for taking the time and trouble to write the review, and I'm very pleased that you ran it as well - so many times adventures are bought just for reading but I try really hard to make mine "made to be run".
I really like the way that you and your PCs interacted with the environment and found ways to make it your own. I'm sorry about the flaws - all perfectly fair comments - but hopefully now you've pointed them out others can benefit from your experience.
I'd also love to know how you get on with Holy Island if you get round to playing that one.
a) The 2.5 year campaign that I ran this in just wrapped up, and several of the players agreed that the finale of this module was the highlight of the campaign.
b) I liked it so much the first time that I just ran it again as a standalone four-session thing, for a different group and this time in a 5e conversion. The conversion was relatively straightforward, just had to restat some monsters using the DMG guidelines. I'll talk about the changes I made to run it the second time and how it went over in a moment, but first, I want to talk about something kind of amazing that happened at the end.
Lots of spoilers for the ending:
On the way out, once the sledge was clear, one of the characters said, basically, "You guys go on ahead, we've done something terrible and I know what I need to do about it." At this point I thought he was going to try in vain to put the lance back in, but instead, he went back to the phistophilus and sold his soul in exchange for wishes to undo what they had just done. This was especially awesome for this character in particular, who had been so upset with the idea of talking to a devil (for backstory reasons) that he walked out on the rest of the party while they were talking to him the first time.
Not having expected this at all, I implemented his wish as a time travel thing that brought him back to before the original Order of the Lily attack, with the opportunity to participate in the attack, making sure enough people know the truth of what happened to avoid some gang of punk adventurers coming and undoing it fifty years later. This had a lot of character resolution with his backstory and was, overall, maybe the happiest ending possible for this adventure. What I wish I had thought of during the session is that he should have been bitten and turned into a vampire during the attack, which would have been an especially great conflict for that particular character, but it was late at the time and I didn't think of it.
Outside of that awesome bit, though, I think the ending didn't go over as well with this group as it did with my previous one. Part of it might have been that we were staying up late to finish it before I move away, part might have been that for scheduling reasons it was a long time between the previous session and the final one, but part of it was also definitely that one player was vocally unsatisfied (even while it was happening) with the basically-unavoidable terrible ending based on things the characters can't know.
Before that:
Less major spoilers for the module as a whole:
– At the very start, this group spent a bunch of time investigating in Englouti, and since I definitely wanted to get to the dragon in the first session, I skipped some of the month-in-Sans-Secours stuff. I get what that month is going for, and overall like it, but I think it's just too long (at least at the pace at which my groups typically play).
– I used the hag much more actively this time, especially because this group spent an inordinate amount of time splitting up from each other. It led to some really fun encounters / paranoia, but I didn't get to the lumberjack thing because of time constraints.
– This group spent a significant amount of effort throwing the caryatid of the monarch out of the gatehouse and into the river. When it plopped under the water and then the person up top turned around to see it looking right at him: that was awesome.
– It was again difficult for this group to figure out the day alteration of the caryatids. I had the nymph be good first, which they saw when scouting with a bat familiar on the first day but didn't actually get to until their second (final) day around Rougemord, and they thought the nasty transformation had something to do with them approaching it or somesuch rather than the day changing. The schedule has the monarch as being nice on the next day, but there was no way they were going to run into him again, so I on the fly changed it to the grindylow, which they then figured out "oh, she's nice, ask her." It didn't happen here, but if the party does go past midnight underground, especially if they activate the finale, I basically don't see how that doesn't become a TPK without a lot of GM assistance.
– At the climax, I skipped a lot of the combat encounters in favor of just talking through their strategies / etc. This was mainly because it was really late, but I think there are maybe too many that could slightly undercut the tension.
Overall, though, I had great fun doing it again, and would still highly recommend it to more people.
(Also, Richard, my plan for adapting Holy Island into that ongoing campaign ended up not working out. I strongly considered doing Seven Sinful Tales, which looks super fun, as a kind of sidetrack, but didn't end up doing that either. I'm sure I'll play some more 4$D at some point in the not-too-distant future, though!)
Thank you very much for your comments and for sharing your playing experiences with us.
You made my day, actually :-)
w.r.t your comments within your spoiler area:
I love the time-travel arc that you used with the phistophilius.
I sympathise with your player who felt that they'd done something horrible without really being able to do anything about it. As you know from reading the adventure this is deliberate, and it's part of why I consider the adventure to be horror. It's not a happy ending.
In contrast, of course, Seven Sinful Tales does have a happy ending, though I note with interest that Enzeitgeist found it a bit saccharin for all that he liked the adventure!
Funnily enough I'm faced with a similar quandary in the adventure I've almost finished writing called World's End. I like to play with variations on the "and they all lived happily ever after" ending, but it always leaves me feeling a bit uneasy.
On your other points:
Of course, shortening the bit in Sans Secours, and any sort of adventure tailoring is always a good idea. The reason Sans Secours is so long is because it takes that long to acclimatise to the altitude (!) Your point about the caryatids is also well made. The PCs need to venture in several times on different days to get the way the whole thing works. You could, of course, have them vary more often than that - maybe switching over every few hours, if that suits the players better.
Once again, really grateful for your comments and I look forward to hearing your experiences with my other modules!
Endzeitgeist's description of the subterranean tentacled vampire-spawning eldritch abomination and it's emergence at the end of the module sort of reminds me of the Brethren Moons from Dead Space III and what they accomplish in the Awakening DLC
