The infamous fight clubs flourish, embraced by angry Azindraleans and Kortezians, alike, but when Kortezian officers die, tensions flare hot. The fires of revolution threaten: will you douse the flames or fan them higher?
This 60-page adventure will take you through the Residential Ward of the Great city and will let you discover a new, unexpected creature: the dreadmanse.
You can play this adventure alone or as part of the Road to Revolution campaign arc.
The Bloody Fix is an urban adventure suitable for a group of 3rd-level characters. By the end of the adventure, the characters should gain two or three levels.
Welcome to the Road to Revolution Campaign Arc, a series of adventures designed for use with the 3.5 version of the world’s most popular roleplaying game. Set in the Great City, this epic campaign takes characters from their humble beginnings all the way to becoming powerful adventurers upon whose actions the City will come to depend. The Campaign Arc contains six adventures in all, each written by the original authors of the Great City Campaign Setting. Arc adventures can be played individually or linked with others in the series to create a complete campaign.
The Bloody Fix is the second adventure of the series, written by Louis Agresta and Rone Barton.
The module features beautiful artwork by Claudio Pozas and Hugh Vogt.
Additional material about the Great City and the Residence Ward can be found in the following titles:
This product is 64 pages long. It starts with a cover, credits and ToC. (4 pages)
Introduction (4 ½ pages)
This section talks about how it is connected to the others in the series. How to tie it to the previous adventure. Background for the adventure. Plot Summery. Four plot hooks and a map of the over all area the adventure takes place in.
Starting the Adventure (7 ½ pages)
This section is the actual beginning of the adventure, starting with the PC's going to meet someone that wants to hire them. The plot is there are fight clubs in the city and the person hiring the PC's believe they are rigged to murder officers in the militia that take part in them. The man that hires them was a nemesis from the first adventure but it is not required to play it to play this one. Several other NPC's from the first adventurer also make appearances in this one.
There is also 5 hand outs, broadsides(news papers) of goings on in the city. A rumors table, of rumors the PC's might here around the city while the investigate things. This section also introduces a young boy to help the PC's out, he knows the city and the people in it well. They go into great detail how to use him, to annoy and endear him to the PC's all at the same time.
Part one The Investigation (22 pages)
This first section is a investigation into the fight clubs and looking for proof they are indeed being used to cover up murder. It begins with advice on how to help make sure the PC's take part and stay on track. It is very well done and very sandboxy, with plenty of advice on how to help keep things moving if the PC's get stumped.
There is 8 location based encounters, they may or may not involve combat depending on how the PC's handle things. There is also 3 event based encounters, one may happen several times.
Part two of the adventure (7 pages)
For reasons that are very good and should drive any PC into action. They head to one of the fight club nights during one of the fights to confront who the believe are the villains of the adventure. There is 4 encounters in this section and their will being fighting. There is some stuff going on in the background that really puts pressure on the PC's and a sense of urgency as well.
Part three of the adventure (8 pages)
They catch up to the person in charge of the previous section and find out where the real villain is. From there they go off to confront the real villain. I so badly want to talk about this section of the adventure but I really can't say anything with out spoiling it. It is just outstandingly well done. It also talks about how to end the adventure depending on how well the PC's did in defeating the “big bad guy” at the end.
Next is a new monster. (7 pages)
It is a very cool new monster. I can't and won't say anything about it other than it is a very clever idea and I am surprised no one had thought of it before. Or I have never seen something like this before and after reading about it, it seems so obvious. The reason I can't talk about it is I don't want to spoil the surprise.
It ends with a handout, ad, OGL and back cover. (4 pages)
Closing thoughts. I loved this adventure, I really did. It was a well done mystery with a lot of twists and turns that totally make sense once you know whats going on. Plus the PC's should figure out the whole story and the history to the adventure as well. It is well written, I didn't notice any obvious errors in the adventure. The layout was good, artwork was black and white and good.
The adventure is a pretty dark and mildly disturbing adventure. It is bloody, gritty and very sad in parts. If a GM pulls things off well and gets their players to emotionally invest with their characters in this adventure, I think it will be something they talk about for some time. The only downside for this adventure is. It doesn't work very well with evil characters, or players that are into hack and slash. This is a very story and RP driven adventure. There is a lot of location maps scattered thru out the book.
So whats my rating? Well I really have nothing at all bad to say about this adventure. I just loved it. So I am giving it a 5 star review. It should be noted while this is a 3.5 adventure there is free download for Pathfinder conversion.
I have read through this adventure in it's entirety and have to say that it is just fantastic! The NPCs and factions involved are delicious, including the reappearance of old NPCs, albeit in vastly different roles. The "offing" of someone from beforehand is also downright rat bastardly.
The final encounter, which Nic aluded to in his review, is fantastic, not just because of it's uniqueness, but the varied possibilities it offers (hint... the players can choose in how they dispose of the tricky wicket, but with some serious long term consequences). The two adventures and all the supporting stuff that is available (off to download some of the maps for my session right now)make this an even better purchase. I can't recommend this line of product highly enough!
This piece, and in fact the entire Great City set, is some of the finest urban adventure madness ever to grace fantasy RPGs. The Residential Ward of the Great City comes alive in equal measures of grime and opulence in The Bloody Fix. The wild menagerie of alluring NPCs in this adventure is enough to make any Rogue's Gallery jealous. The plot is first rate, with nice surprises that batter down the cliches we gamers are all too accustomed to.
In this adventure your PCs will enter the grit and blood of fight clubs, where murky politics motivate deadly fixes to the outcomes of these matches, explore haunted manors, and even rock out at poetry slams if they so wish. It is an urban adventure supplying richer environs than any I've played before.
The piece de resistance is the Dread Manse - I love a villain who is also location the party must explore, and this has never been so perfectly realized as it is here. If you haven't checked out The Great City and all the adventures that accompany it, stop making excuses and pick them up - especially if you are fan of urban adventures.
This adventure is 64 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page blank inside front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page advertisement, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving 57 pages for this installment of the Road to Revolution-saga.
This one is a special one for me, after all, it was the first review I ever wrote. It was uninformative, short and did not do this adventure any justice and today, finally, I’m revisiting this great piece!
This being an adventure-review, you will see A LOT OF SPOILERS from this point on, potential players should jump to my conclusion. I mean it, this being a mystery-adventure and a good one at that, you’d really spoil yourself a great treat.
…
Still here?? SPOILERS ABOUND!!!
…
All right, let’s delve in! When the PCs in part I of the Road to Revolution cracked down, hard, on the skullcrackers, the fighting should have stopped. Instead, the fight clubs as vents for the racial tensions have begun to pop up all around Azindralea like shrooms on a decaying trunk, codified and supposedly safer than before. Something stirs, though, and champions have begun to die in battles and accidents and thus, the PCs are contacted by an old acquaintance, Marcus Galwatty, the stone-walling army-bureaucrat/warrior from the last adventure who has received an Ehrenrood, a fighting stick that, via social and political pressure, forces him to fight soon, but he also knows that the set-up will result in his death, one way or the other.
Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, Galwatty asks the PCs to help him in his investigations and find the true mastermind behind the deaths, the fight clubs… and of course, save his hide. All that in just a couple of days, but thankfully, street urchin and information gatherer extraordinaire Eddie Gin is on the side of the PCs and will help them if they get stumped. Assuming the PCs want to help him (and a plethora of non-altruistic reasons are given as hooks), the investigation is on! It is here I should note that once again a whole set of broadsides as handouts are provided to bring the city to life.
The investigation is kicked off by the PCs looking for the suspects and informants Galwatty etc. and extensive information on how to get the PCs back on track and/or avoid investigative dead-ends. First of the suspects, a cruel money-lender named Mona who lairs in an Inthoso-den, including its very own, high-quality mini-map. What’s Inthoso? Well, it’s a hallucinogenic, synesthetical drug that can make for quite some interesting additional roleplaying encounters. Mona is definitely not a nice gal and not among the most cooperative suspects. Even worse, some of her answers might lead the PCs to suspect that something is amiss with her…
The next suspect’s trail leads to a butchering yard in a villa (again with a map) now occupied by a rather hostile gang, including a dire mongoose guard “dog” – the PCs will have to use their wits or stealth in order to save this particular suspect from the attentions of the gang – nice hostage situation included. The hostage, though, is disturbing – cowered in self-inflicted scab-marks that spell out dread warnings, the lingering sense of dread and something being amiss further intensifies.
From this rather creepy portent, we move on to, get this, a poetry-slam in a rather nice tavern against a former champion of the moon goddess! Ever did something like that in an adventure? Thought so! Even cooler: After the bantering, the PCs might find their 3rd suspect, shrunken and hiding in a tea-pot. Once again, good interrogation skills may provide another clue for the PCs and another, almost supernatural stonewall that seems to stupefy their every move.
Next up on the list in a mid-to high class brothel (including map), where diplomacy might get the PCs to a hot clue, finally – if they act smart, they’ll be pointed towards a certain tower, in which one Gentlemen Jimmy Gems is in the course of killing his latest offering to the mastermind behind this dread plot and drain her blood via an invisible pipe into the sewers. And yeah, birds sometimes perching atop it are mentioned! That is, if the PCs are truly superb – otherwise they’re in for a cool little parcours-like chase-scene against Jimmy, who is not to be trifled with…
The menagerie of cool interrogations and investigations continues with a potential bar-brawl in a legendary insurgent’s bar with Galwatty’s foe in the battle to come – who promptly tries to insult the PCs and, looking at the colorful sample-insults the pdf provides, I can definitely see him succeeding in provoking them. Hopefully they don’t miss a rather uncharacteristic lapse in his tough-man’s bearing.
If the PCs get stumped (or you want to make sure they realize not all is going well), an encounter with the now half-mad, nightmare-haunted Marcus is up any time the DM sees fit.
All while this investigation is happening, a huge array of modular hauntings and cool attacks can happen and be sprinkled in, gradually building tension – from ghostly nursery rhymes to mime-monks attacking, up until the PCs had enough investigation. Once that happens, they will have encounter a Galwatty who has fallen prey to a cursed attack and can’t fight. Thanks to alter self, once again the PCs might have to save someone by climbing into the fight club’s ring – even better, depending on the course of the adventure and the initial hook used to get the PCs involved, motivations are given aplenty – commendable in adventure-writing! Unfortunately for the PCs, their trusted side-kick has been kidnapped and they’ll have to act fast to save the poor street-urchin – a rather gruesome letter by the crimson medusa that wants the PCs away from the crimson cup, where the fight will take place.
Part II sees the PCs infiltrate said locale (a map once again is provided) – that is, a part of them will. While their employer has his own agenda, one of them will fight in a force-cage against his opponent while not only the crimson medusa poses a threat, but the mysterious hooded lady, agent to the villainous mastermind, uses a potion by a quite legendary alchemist to turn half the people into slavering dog-man-things out for blood – carnage, confusion and a worthy battle are likely to ensue, as is the first fault of the hooded woman - a direct link to said alchemist and subsequently the chance to catch her and get the final, crucial piece of evidence they need.
This leads us into the furious finale of this adventure and once again, I’m calling for a spoiler-alert. Even if you ignored my first one, please, if you have any chance of playing this adventure, don’t spoil the revelation.
SUPER SPOILER ALERT
….
Still here? Ok.
The enemy, as it turns out, is the whole mansion, brought to life via a dread tragedy that the players, by piercing together clues from their investigation and the finale, might destroy. Brute force won’t help them that much and the supremely creepy, smart collection of encounters with the mansion, while navigating it, coupled with flashbacks that offer some discrepancies to their findings. While at first the true nature might not be evident, unscrupulous players who fail to (or don’t want to) defeat the mansion can ally themselves with this dread foe. Among the haunted house climaxes I’vre read so far, and I’ve read a lot, this one ranks supreme at the best one. The final pages of the adventure are taken up by discussing its conclusion, giving huge lists of abilities for creatures like the main villain as well as the remaining handout.
It should be noted that the handouts can be downloaded for free in a full color version. The PFRPG-conversion for this adventure is free as well.
Lou Agresta and I penned this. It's my first published adventure, one full of ribaldry, whimsy, investigation, melee aplenty and a terrifying twist or three... along with a new monster that is something very special.
Little bit of history behind the review, to clue y'all in to the joke or in case anyone is curious. He was 'tempted to say he disliked it', because on the Sinister site, I posted this:
Louis Agresta wrote:
Now, if you want plot, may I suggest The Bloody Fix by myself and The Jade? I swear it won't disappoint. Hell, Endzeitgeist, if you buy the PDF and can honestly tell me you don't like it -- I'll personally refund your money through paypal. I'm that confident. There's also a Lulu version.
You know, sometimes, when you write something, you just know its good. I get embarrassed talking about myself, and I really don't want to seem like I'm bragging or being a d*ck -- but this is good. Something about writing with The Jade brings out the best in me.
If you try it, I'd love to hear your insights and, especially, any play reports.
Thanks again for the review!
and The Jade added
The Jade wrote:
I'll take half that guarantee action!
So that's why the 'temptation'...
Anyhoo, we were so happy to get that review. Hope anyone out there in Paizo land tells us what they think -- especially, constructive critique.
This is a wonderful follow up; I really enjoyed the ending, especially how open ended it is. There is a lot of NPC interaction, with good continuity from the first adventure as well. If these products had come out during the hay days of D20, I have no doubt that these products would have been in print and be best sellers (they are certainly very ambitious and very well executed!); as it stands, they are better than any city based campaign out there for d20.
All in all, the City and the adventures remind me a lot of The Enemy Within campaign for the old Warhammer RPG- probably the best city based campaign out there (other than the last adventure). I also think that the first two adventures can work very well as stand alones. The adventures and the setting are so good that I am in the process of starting a campaign! I would love to see how some of the major plot threads hinted at in the Great City Setting are played on in the adventures to follow.
My only little issue is that the ending does not provide a little synopsis of how it ties to the next adventure in the series. I will write a review of this when I get a chance.
This is a wonderful follow up; I really enjoyed the ending, especially how open ended it is. There is a lot of NPC interaction, with good continuity from the first adventure as well. If these products had come out during the hay days of D20, I have no doubt that these products would have been in print and be best sellers (they are certainly very ambitious and very well executed!); as it stands, they are better than any city based campaign out there for d20.
All in all, the City and the adventures remind me a lot of The Enemy Within campaign for the old Warhammer RPG- probably the best city based campaign out there (other than the last adventure). I also think that the first two adventures can work very well as stand alones. The adventures and the setting are so good that I am in the process of starting a campaign! I would love to see how some of the major plot threads hinted at in the Great City Setting are played on in the adventures to follow.
My only little issue is that the ending does not provide a little synopsis of how it ties to the next adventure in the series. I will write a review of this when I get a chance.
That's wonderful! So very glad you liked it. And really glad you dug the BBEG! As for how it ties in to the next, I think the next should have a small backward looking paragraph for continuity. Maybe Hitchcock will chime in on that as he's the guardian of the story arc. Thanks for your kind words, enthusiasm and forthcoming review. Would LOVE to hear how your campaign goes and what your players think. Have a great new year!
PS You can get them in print through the 0onegames web site. Not sure if Paizo has the links to print or not, but definitely, they are available in print. The Great City Campaign Setting is a hardcover, even. 3.5 never die! (& PFRPG of course!)
After co writing The Bloody Fix with Lou, our conversations sounded something like this:
L: "It's hard to know when you're so close to your own work, but I think it's really good."
R: "Me too... I think. I hope."
We set ambitious goals for this adventure, and I'm really happy those of you who reviewed it were pleased.
I'm sure a lot of you, when writing adventures, bump up against that invisble buffer between what you'd like to write and what you feel capable of writing, but having a co writer really pushed us both to try our hardest. Writing collaborations can create some sizzling synergy.
Lou and I are just finishing up our latest adventure, Puncture the Blackened Vein, and while looking over our notes and sighing over a battery of last minute improvements that would burden us with yet another week of writing, Lou said, "I get the feeling everything we write together has to be rich."
I guess I've always been the guy who designs a pretty 12-story house of cards and Lou's a prose engineer with the steadiest of hands. Then again, before spouting off I should probably stop [backpat][/backpat] until this next adventure sees release... cause it may be raining cards up in here soon enough. ;)
I know this has been out a long time, but I only fairly recently got it. Just finished reading and reviewing it. It is outstanding and I strongly recommend anyone to read my review and buy it.
I know this has been out a long time, but I only fairly recently got it. Just finished reading and reviewing it. It is outstanding and I strongly recommend anyone to read my review and buy it.
Thank you for taking the time to review The Bloody Fix! I'm so glad you enjoyed it.
Editing and formatting are very good, I didn’t notice a single formatting error and only two minor typos, not enough to detract a star. The adventure is bookmarked and layout adheres to the elegant two-column b/w-standard, offering quite a bunch of original pieces of b/w-artwork that serve to capture the flair of what is happening. This adventure was my very first 3pp-review, and for a reason. Good investigations are hard to pull off. Good horror adventures are even harder to pull off in roleplaying settings, where the PCs are actually hard and can fight their threats (unlike CoC or ToC) – this adventure manages to pull off both stunts at once. The sheer imaginative playfulness witch which surreal, yet very cool ideas like a certain shrunken person and his vantage point as well as the villain and several others are presented and compressed into the pages of this module, is simply staggering. Usually, I’m quite glad if there’s ONE good idea per adventure – this one, though, brims with them, going above and beyond to keep the investigation modular, yet easy to run and alternating between potentially humorous and terrifying encounters, hurtling the adventurers to a climax that had my players chewing their nails. I am jaded and so are my players, but quality like this is seldom seen for any system and I can gladly announce that in spite of the experience I’ve amassed since reviewing this for the first time, it has not become one bit stale – rather, I can today more than then, appreciate the stellar quality of the writing of Lou Agresta and Rone Barton’s cooperation. This adventure is a modern classic and ranks among the best urban mysteries I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. My final verdict, predictably, is 5 stars and the Endzeitgeist seal of approval. Quite frankly, I’d go for 6 if I could. If you have somehow missed this until now, give it a try. I guarantee you won’t regret it.
Endzeitgeist out.
Finally expanded the review to reflect the level of quality and coverage the adventure deserves. Also sent my review to GMS magazine and posted it on RPGaggression.
Editing and formatting are very good, I didn’t notice a single formatting error and only two minor typos, not enough to detract a star. The adventure is bookmarked and layout adheres to the elegant two-column b/w-standard, offering quite a bunch of original pieces of b/w-artwork that serve to capture the flair of what is happening. This adventure was my very first 3pp-review, and for a reason. Good investigations are hard to pull off. Good horror adventures are even harder to pull off in roleplaying settings, where the PCs are actually hard and can fight their threats (unlike CoC or ToC) – this adventure manages to pull off both stunts at once. The sheer imaginative playfulness witch which surreal, yet very cool ideas like a certain shrunken person and his vantage point as well as the villain and several others are presented and compressed into the pages of this module, is simply staggering. Usually, I’m quite glad if there’s ONE good idea per adventure – this one, though, brims with them, going above and beyond to keep the investigation modular, yet easy to run and alternating between potentially humorous and terrifying encounters, hurtling the adventurers to a climax that had my players chewing their nails. I am jaded and so are my players, but quality like this is seldom seen for any system and I can gladly announce that in spite of the experience I’ve amassed since reviewing this for the first time, it has not become one bit stale – rather, I can today more than then, appreciate the stellar quality of the writing of Lou Agresta and Rone Barton’s cooperation. This adventure is a modern classic and ranks among the best urban mysteries I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. My final verdict, predictably, is 5 stars and the Endzeitgeist seal of approval. Quite frankly, I’d go for 6 if I could. If you have somehow missed this until now, give it a try. I guarantee you won’t regret it.
Endzeitgeist out.
Finally expanded the review to reflect the level of quality and coverage the...
Um... WOW. When you mentioned you reviewed this adventure a second time I was prepared to visit this page and see it lose a star since you've reviewed so much in the last two and a half years, but... yeah... wow. Thank you so much.
I love the concept of everything going on in this, and am prepping to run it for my players on Tuesday. I am a bit frustrated though with one thing. The adventure reads like the Residential Ward is wear the gangs (crossroads clubs) and poor/middle class people (like the PCs) would live. On the map however it looks like there's maybe a dozen noble villas there and certainly no tenements (despite the campaign setting saying the streets are narrow and crowded there).
Also, why does the 11 year old boy have 16 strength and 16 con?
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