Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Dragon's Foot OSR Free Adventure - LG1: Terror in the Forest of Gizzick By Claude M. LeBrun For Your Old School Campaigns

Good evening kids, your uncle Eric is back with another bit of commentary this time we go back to Dragon's foot for a free adventure download with lots of potential. I'm speaking of LG1: Terror in the Forest of Gizzick By Claude M. LeBrun. This is a free fifteen page AD&D 1st edition style adventure that takes full advantage of its PC levels right out of the gate. There is an element of danger and the adventure involves some humanoid races that don't get much air play these days and this is an adventure that takes the old school investigative style and pumps it up by an order of magnitude;"Many years ago Ronan Haverstack was an apprentice to the count’s personal wizard Jax Narhl. Ronan was an excellent student, working as hard as he could to learn all the tricks of spell casting. Ronan with a large thirst for knowledge would spend hours reading and studying all the tomes and spell books in Jax’s library. Jax kept one tome magically locked in a strongbox and would not allow Ronan to look at it. “I keep that tome locked away to prevent its evil from ever seeing the light of day”, Jax would say. Ronan coveted that book, and eventually figured out how to break the magical seal. Jax caught Ronan removing the book from the strongbox and tried to take it away. A fight ensued which ended in Ronan killing Jax. It wasn’t long before Jax’s murder was discovered and Ronan had to flee the kingdom. To avoid discovery Ronan Haverstack changed his name to Gandilor. Gandilor wandered for several months and eventually found refuge in a fishing village on the southern coast."  Things only get worse from this point and that's where your PC's get involved.The adventure picks up right from here and pulls your party of adventurers into the deep wasters of the plot of LG1: Terror in the Forest .The module places the PC's right into the middle of the action right out of the gate and keeps them there with a series of demanding and solid encounters. Its also an adventure that can be customized as you need to and its perfect for a DYI side quest or campaign opener;"Locate the hobgoblin’s lair in any forest in a non-populated area near a rural community, farmland, or village. Place in this area a few farms and settlements that have been raided by the hobgoblins." Believe it or not for a fifteen page adventure there actually is a subplot to this adventure and it has a ton to do with the background and history of the  Forest of Gizzick. Because of the nature of this adventure I was wishing there was more to it.


There are enough twists and turns to take this adventure in many different directions depending upon the retroclone system that your using at your table. The idea here is that LG1: Terror in the Forest of Gizzick could be used in a Dark Albion setting especially on the outer fringes of the empire of Albion and the like. Or it could be used in the mythic and twisted lonely places of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess retro clone system. There is enough meat on the bones of this adventure to adapt it into the back end of an old school campaign so that it can be used as a jump off point or as a side quest for the PC's. There is enough here to take the adventure down a dark and dangerous path. But is it worth the download?
The short answer is yes but the longer one is where do you as the dungeon master want to place this adventure. There are several dangerous and strong NPC's in this adventure and that could work to a DM's advantage if they wish to write a bit more to suit their own campaign. There are several opportunities for a dungeon master with a bit of a DYI D&D streak to take full advantage of these horrors, opportunities, and NPC's and make them their own.
While it is a fun adventure many of the more understated sword and sorcery elements in LG1: Terror in the Forest of Gizzick  might need to be brought forward for front and center to really move the plot along and get the DM's own campaign elements to take center stage.
All in all this is a great free module with lots of potential for a fully created and staged side quest or this adventure could be used to launch a great side campaign of the DM's own design. For a free module its pretty damn sweet and well constructed.

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