Itchy's page

The Black Monastery is an old style sandbox dungeon from Frog God Games, but you already knew that, right? What does it have to offer you?

First, there is not much story here. There is a lot of background at the beginning of the book explaining the history of Black Monastery. This is all fluff that you can use, take it or leave it. There is no plot to this adventure. There is no railroad. PC's are free to explore the dungeon at their own risk. As they explore they may or may not discover some of the history outlined at the beginning, that's up to the GM. They can get lots of satisfaction from this adventure without knowing any of the background.

Second, this adventure is highly modifiable. The author states at the outset that if you don't like the way something works, if it is too dangerous for the party, if it takes away from the fun; the GM should change it. They offer different ways to do this. Every monster is listed with average hit points and max hit points. For the (sort of) BBEG battles, they offer different ways to scale the encounter for the PC's.

Third, even if you don't want to/ have time to run the full adventure, there are TONS of ideas in this book. Every room is mostly self-contained. What happens in one room doesn't really effect what happens in the room next door. There are some awesomely creative traps in this dungeon. Some rooms do not help or harm the PC's but set a creepy tone beautifully.

One example is a room where the PC's open a door and see a person standing in the middle of the room. He turns around, cries out and dies. Upon examination, he has the body of a young man, but the head of an old man. He set off a trap that aged his head 50 years, thus killing him.

I'm planning to lift rooms like this out of this adventure and insert them into the module I am currently running.

Fourth, the artwork in the book is beautiful. It is all black and white, so you can print out or photocopy pages and mark them up with your own notes.

Why 4 stars instead of 5? There are some places where ranges are given instead of dice rolls (ex: 4-24 gp instead of 4d6 gp). I have noticed some minor spelling errors.

Overall, this is a useful module/adventure for any GM. You can drop it into any campaign and modify it to suit your needs. Send the party in to rescue a missing noblewoman. Send them in then have the Monastery move to a new plane. Send them in to kill them off and start new adventure. The possibilities are too numerous to count!

This was a great issue. I would pay for a magazine this good, and here it is given away for the enjoyment of all!

Here is my review primarily of the stories in the e-zine.

Ice and Darkness: A story of temptation and fall. I loved how this story tied into the next weal/woe segment and then tied into the following adventure segment!

The Three Rimes: As soon as I finished this story last night, I turned to my wife (who was reading World War Z) and told her that she should read this story. It is a bit of a classic fairy story with deals and suchlike, especially a clever hero. I especially enjoyed the extensive use of alliteration since that was in important part of Scandinavian folklore.

The Great Hunt: I want to play this game. It looks like fun. I will be looking at options to download and print the full size board and tokens. (Thanks JonathanRoberts!)

Tallak: Portrait of a Warrior: Good story. Simple. As stated, it is a character portrait of a warrior with a strong moral code. This story is a good counterpart to the next one in line, which brings me to:

The Linnorm's Curse: Well written! Sad! A beautiful story of heroism and loss. Not every campaign should end this way, but some definitely should. It certainly portrays that great things cannot be done without losing something along the way. This story also fits the archetype of the Scandinavian mythology where the hero loses much, if not all, to win. I think that this was the best fiction in the issue. It grabbed and held me at an emotional level.

In Hells Embrace: Part IV: I’ll be honest. I did not read this one, because I want to go back through my back issues of Wayfinder and read them in order. If I can find the time to do that this weekend, I will post a review... here, I guess. I am not sure where else to put it.

Words from Many Roads: I enjoyed the poetry. I need to let this stew a bit more before I comment on it. Poetry is not as east to talk about as fiction is.

Moot: A Folktale: I’ll admit, I read this one out of order last night because it was written by Kevin Andrew Murphy and I have enjoyed everything of his that I have read so far. This was a fun, one page story about the inner workings of gremlin culture as related by the hero from The Three Rimes. It was fun, anyone can be a gremlin.

Ostog’s Song: An entrancing story of an Ulfen hunter entranced by the song of a Nymph. I enjoyed the inevitability in the story. The way that he knew what he SHOULD do, but couldn’t seem to do it. Even though I knew exactly what was going to happen, I still wanted to read to find out HOW it happened. Bravo! The fey are so mischievous! Racy art!!

Champion of the People: The lengths that we will go to in order to protect those we love and those under our protection are tremendous.

This short story is about Valdia, a half-vampire trying to protect the village of Sheol. Sheol is located on the Plane of Shadow, an opposite of the normal world inhabited by undead and other creatures that shun the darkness. She has been hired to rescue an infant kidnapped by ghouls. Unfortunately, she has fallen victim to a plot to separate her from her chosen wards (thus the Pawn and Deception).

Here we have a heroine who is conflicted about her heritage who is trying to fit in with the human population of the town that she has chosen to defend. The townspeople don't trust her because of her heritage. She does not get along with her vampire father, who takes an interest in her activities for undisclosed reasons of his own. There is some fighting and mild horror violence. The words themselves are strictly PG on the MPAA rating scale. However, on film there are scenes that would push it firmly into the realm of PG-13. The story is dark, but not inappropriate for anyone 13 or up. Would definitely be enjoyed by any adult who is a fan of dark fiction (Valdia's father offers to take the infant off her hands, presumably as foodstuffs. No sparkly vampires here).

I rate this a 4 stars story. A bargain at the price.

The sequel to Prince of Wolves takes place in Tian-Xa (think a fantasy China/Japan setting). This book is heavily influenced by Chinese cinema, so you have monks that fly (like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) and weapons that act impossibly (at one point cloth is used as a weapon). Fights (lots of these) are described very cinematically. This is a very fun book with some very strange characters in it. If I knew more asian mythology, I might understand them better, but that did not detract from my enjoyment or understanding of the book in any way. Under the MPAA rating system, I would call this book PG. It is appropriate and enjoyable for anyone from teens to adults.

This is the most mature of the Pathfinder Tales thus far (written December 2011). It has been described as Ocean's Eleven in the Abyss (Hell), and this is an accurate description. I would add that there are distinct moments that are reminiscent of the film “Aliens.” It does have the most sexually explicit scene of the Pathfinder Tales so far, but nothing that you wouldn't see in a PG-13 film (that was trying to skirt just shy of R). The biggest complaint from reviewers on this book is that it is written in the present tense. I felt that this enhanced the story, but some found it distracting. Under the MPAA system, I rate the book a PG-13 almost R.

This is my favorite book of the Pathfinder Tales so far. It earns a solid PG under the MPAA rating system. This book was a fun quest. As I read it, I felt like I was running through an adventure. There are some mature themes in it (racism, love/loss, violence, death, quest for power), but nothing that you wouldn't find in any novel read in a Jr High/High School English class. This book has a very strong female lead. I would rate this as a Teen+ book, highly enjoyable to all ages above 13.

A classic tale of the hero setting out to rescue the fair maiden in distress. This book earns a PG MPAA rating from me. I would not think twice about giving it to a Jr. High reader. This book has a very strong female lead and a clueless male lead. There is definitely a "Coming of Age" theme to the book. I was impressed with how magic was described in the book. It holds true to the RPG ruleset of Pathfinder without requiring that you know the rules or how they work. It was a fun read. I would rate this as a Teen+ book, highly enjoyable to all ages above 13.

Written by "fan favorite" Dave Gross, you are introduced to a half elf Pathfinder and his Teifling bodyguard. The book takes place in Ustalav, a Gothic Horror setting. As you might guess from the title, werewolves feature fairly prominently in the story. I would rate this as a Teen+ book, highly enjoyable to all ages above 13. It's a PG-13 under the MPAA.

I ran this adventure as a one off on our normal gaming night. Two of my players couldn't make it, so the rest of us had Goblin hilarity for the evening.

One of the players is brand new to Pathfinder. This is the first RPG he has ever played. This was a hilarious, rip-roaring fun introduction for him! Most of the damage the players took was from each other Three Stooges style.

Loved the module. My players now want more Goblin goodness!