Tunnels of Despair, written by Stefan Happ, is part of an ongoing series set in the Great City. This is not a numbered adventure in a path, but instead, it concerns a mysterious event that will forever alter the Great City, setting the tone for future events. Throughout the year, 0one games will release a number of short adventures whose various plots are all somehow entwined with the event. Each will be a stand-alone adventure, designed to be played independently without a specific sequence and can be completed in a single evening’s play.
Freed by powerful tremors which cracked the slave-pens of their nefarious captors, a group of refugees fled into the sewers beneath Pounder Festhall seeking the aid of an elusive slave-helper who protects and shelters outcasts in a secret, subterranean shantytown "utopia". Attempting to pilfer some food from in the drinking hall basement, they accidentally startle a barmaid and are forced to hostage her for safe passage. Sent to rescue the barmaid, the PCs soon find things more complicated when they cross paths with the slavers seeking to recapture the refugees. PCs must choose sides, but find themselves embroiled in a conflict that takes place aboard one of the slave-rings harbored vessels.
Tunnels of Despair is an adventure for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game for 1st-level characters.
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Once again we return to the Great City with 0one's Sinking series. This adventure begins with an adventure summary that promises plenty of roleplaying opportunities and paths the PCs can choose based on their alignment. I was extremely interested to see how this would pan out.
The summary of this adventure is that the PCs are in a feasthall when a maid is kidnapped by kitchen raiders who take her out of fear of being found out. The kidnappers are escaped slaves being hunted by their captors after the sinkhole allowed them to escape into new tunnels it created. After rescuing the maid, the PCs are tasked by the slaves to destroy the ship the slavers use in the harbour.
Unfortunately, the adventure fails to develop most of these interesting leads. The PCs are to be given the opportunity to choose to work with the slavers or the slaves, but in the adventure, the slavers attack them without a word otherwise. PCs are left with no choice other than a mundane battle. The PCs of course find the escaped slaves and the damsel in distress. Here there is a character alluded to in one of the 3 adventure hooks who has the potential to be an interesting and valuable addition to your campaign. Except that if you didn't follow that plotline, the PCs in the adventure are not told who he is. As a DM, all the good roleplaying between the slaves and the PCs is up to you to create and you will have to role play his back story and tell them who he is. If your players don't have some history about him, his appearance can feel artificial, as in "oh, by the way, look who else is down here!" If the PCs don't help the slaves, the slavers are supposed to target them as troublemakers anyway. Using usual DM intuition, it would mean that the villains harry the PCs until the PCs destroy them. You would just run part 2 anyway, but it would be nice to have a paragraph about that as an alternate encounter in the body of the adventure. Interestingly for a band of villains that don't want to draw attention to themselves, these guys use thunderstones.
The slaves tell the PCs about the boat the slavers use and suggest they destroy it. Here again, unfortunately, we run into a question of motives. Why destroy such a nice boat when you can have it for your very own? Well, apparently this pleasure craft is owned by investors and piracy is death. PCs are encouraged to kill the BBEG on board when the guard isn't looking, a fact that some LG characters would balk at. There is no suggestion as to what happens to the boat in the end, nothing about scuttling it or what the penalties might be. Any responsible party wouldn't want to let it return to harbour for the villains to reclaim. Finally, the final villain is a unique class from 0one Games that does not have all its rules in its stats, essentially forcing you to buy another book or make alterations.
Rest assured, there is some gold in this adventure. There are some great environmental hazards and some traps and the slavers act like slavers and try to capture the PCs. The maps and B&W art are of high standard. The adventure summary has amazing potential. I think this adventure suffers from too low of word count to get all its ideas fleshed out properly, which is a shame, because it could be something great instead of mediocre.
I would recommend this module, but to DMs who have time to create all the missed roleplaying potential. Additionally, the guttermage will need reworking unless you buy the book that details the class. For the right DM, this has the chance to be a diamond in the rough.
This installment of "The Sinking" is 17 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 2 pages of advertisements, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving 10 pages of content, so let's check out the tunnels of despair, shall we?
This being an adventure review, the following contains SPOILERS. Potential players might want to skip to the conclusion.
Still here? Righty right, the PCs, while partying or investigating in the army ward, are in a bar and by one hook or another, notice that a barmaid (who might have had a tryst with a PC before) has been kidnapped. Tracking the kidnapper down into the tunnels under Circus Maximus (which come with maps), where they stumble across some less-than-friendly goons of the Crimson Medusa, a rather prominent organization of slavers and dealers in the illicit and after a flooded tunnel, they meet the true culprits of the kidnapping - slaves on the run from their tormentors, who wanted to steal food for their subterranean refugee camp and were caught by the barmaid, who is by the way unharmed. This leads to an interesting situation, where the PCs can gain allies in the proverbial underground by helping the slaves: They want a certain bugbear slavehunter and his rather smarty disguised operation aboard an exclusive "yacht" for "the privileged" taken down.
The yacht is fully mapped and the assault on it constitutes the second part of the adventure, where the PCs have all freedom to stage a smart attack on the barge before authority can shut them down. Not only will they have to contend with aforementioned bugbear, but also with his tengu crew, a half-giant and a rather unpleasant guttermage. Once successful, they have made powerful enemies and interesting friends.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are ok - I noticed some awkward phrases and minor punctuation errors here and there. Layout adheres to a 2-column standard and the b/w-artworks and maps are neat, especially for the very low price. The pdf comes with bookmarks. This adventure uses several classic tropes, but always has one or another minor addition that make them feel fresh, whether it is the new slingshot-weapon or the non-standard nature of some parts of the PC's opposition. That being said, while this is by no means a bad scenario, it is also not one that blew me away. I thought some time and figured the glitches and great artwork/maps cancel each other out and thus arrive at a final verdict of 3 stars - an ok scenario for a very affordable price.
This adventure in the campaign The Sinking sends the characters into the Army Quarter, showing them some of the aftermath of the cataclysm there... as well as, wherever you might go in the Great City, how adventure, danger and opportunity are never too far away!
As in many of the best adventures, it is a seemingly minor event that sets the whole thing in motion. The sort of event that the best GMs slip in just to make their alternate reality come alive in their players' minds, in this case used as a neat way to begin the adventure. Better yet, it's an adventure that poses a moral quandry to the characters, faced with conflicting pleas for assistance, who should they help?
The adventure revolves around some former slaves, who took advantage of the cataclysm to part company with their previous masters, and other denizens of the sewers and catacombs in which they have taken refuge. It begins, however, where adventurers are often found: in a tavern. As usual, several hooks are provided to encourage the characters to get involved, ranging from employment opportunities to a barmaid offering one of the characters... er, well, you know, we'll say her favours. However they become involved, a merry chase through the sewers ensues.
The sewers are well-described, although the map is rudimentary. The text will enable you to set the scene well, and the characters should soon realise that anyone living there by choice must have a very good reason for not emerging into the world above. Naturally, whatever the characters do has consequences, including raising the ire of the slavers, leading to a climatic scene on a yacht in the harbour. All very nicely done, there is the real feel of this being an operation in progress that the characters have happened upon, that would be going on whether or not they were around, rather than something provided for them.
In reviewing 0one product, the fact that the company's native tongue is not English is normally only apparent by occasional clumsy turns of phrase, but this one alas is dotted with errors that at times make it quite hard to figure out just what is being said. A good proofread, preferably by a native English speaker, would have been of benefit.
The aftermath of the adventure will leave the characters with both enemies and allies for the future, but provides a satisfactory conclusion if you choose to run this as a one-off. Overall it is a good and exciting adventure with plenty to do, and scope for characters who enjoy interaction as well as those looking to exercise their sword-arms.
