For decades, stories have circulated about the Cursed Chateau: the debauched entertainments and depraved experiments that took place within its walls while its master, Lord Jourdain, yet lived and the terrible hauntings that followed in the wake of his mysterious death.
Now you find yourself trapped inside the Chateau, cut off from the sanity of the world outside. Only by braving its terrors can you hope to find the key to your escape if you survive.
The Cursed Chateau is a fantasy roleplaying adventure for 4-8 characters of levels 4-6 that includes referee information, maps, exploration keys, and everything else needed to play.
The Cursed Chateau is a horror-infused, retro fantasy, location-based adventure module designed to be compatible with any old-school class-and-level system. It is designed for 4 – 8 characters of 4th – 6th Level and contains stats that are meant to be broad for compatibility with many systems. The adventure pins the PCs in a nasty little game of investigation and survival while attempting to succeed in the adventure’s hopeful outcome. This module is filled with twists and lots of nasties and should keep the players on their toes, as long as they realize how success is achieved.
OVERALL
The infusion of retro fantasy and horror is done perfectly. Obtaining the great riches can come at a heavy cost with plenty of secrets hiding in the shadows. It’s a great adventure module for dropping into a campaign or running by itself. Although if you’re not careful, this adventure could cut your campaign short.
RATINGS
Publication Quality: 8 out of 10
The Cursed Chateau contains Rogue Game’s simple and easy-to-read layout and presentation with a smattering of interesting illustrations. These illustrations are disturbing and twisted and fit well with the setting, but I found a couple of them didn’t match the descriptions in the content. This may be done deliberately and are meant as an enhancement to the content rather than a visual display of the description, but they definitely help in depicting the scene being portrayed. The presentation of the content is very well-done and the NPC stat blocks are all easy to read.
Storyline: 8 out of 10
The storyline has a properly developed background and a definite end-point, however the storyline in-between is a bit vague and is presented as story-points rather than a story that flows from beginning to end. While this allows the PCs to move through the location as they please, I had to go back-and-forth between points to piece things together. This does create a very flexible storyline and allows the game-play to dictate the details.
Desire to Play: 10 out of 10
This could be a very interesting adventure module to run multiple times. Not for the sake of succeeding each time, but for the fact that your party may fail the first couple times and the players may want another crack at it. It’s a great combination of “dungeon crawl” and investigation, brought together in a fairly Lovecraftian style.
Overall: 9 out of 10
I definitely recommend running this adventure module. Not only as an old-school styled module but also as a horror-themed module for any compatible game system (or one that can become easily compatible). With its possible high-level of difficulty, its bound to keep your players guessing and each and every turn.
