Thursday, December 14, 2023

Review & Commentary On Severed Fate By John Keefe and Laurel Nicholson From Smoldering Dung Games For Your Old School Or OSR Campaigns

 "Barely 100 feet away, the repulsive and terrifying monster Furythorn steps into the compound littered with burning corpses. He hasn’t seen you yet, but he will soon. There's no escape. Your band of adventurers are the last ones to stop his destruction and killing.


You ready your weapon, watching bursts of flames erupt from his body. Hideous pus-oozing burns cover his face.

As night deepens, one of his hulking minions spots you and points, grunting. Seeing your group of warriors, Furythorn laughs a chilling cackle, spewing pus into the evening air. “There you are cowards. I’ve been waiting for you.” He holds out his arms. “Come to me and die!”



Kranna, the wizard’s apprentice feverishly clutches the spell components beneath her cloak. “He must die tonight. Otherwise he’ll destroy the whole northern half of the isle.” The only response is the sound of blades pulled from their sheathes. As you charge forward, embers from the monster’s burning flesh float above you in the wind." 


Severed Fate By John Keefe and Laurel Nicholson is a 1st level adventure for five to seven player's PC. Severed Fate is well done 1st or 2nd level adventure for beginning or  experienced players. Severed Fate can be dropped into any campaign & works very well with campaigns with wilderness focuses. And it has as it's central focus an impressive NPC and lots of twists and turns. 
Severed Fate is very much grounded in the old school tradition with some mature themes but it's also grounded into the OSR's more modern aspects. The good aspects of this module are that if run solidly with a good group of players this adventure will cement the touchstone for an exciting campaign. The layout is well done, the fonts easy to read, and the material well done OSR solidly adventure. 
Encounters in Severed Fate can be and are deadly for a group of players who are not used to the fact that death is always waiting around the corner. And in this OSR module  this is never more true. 
The writing is solid for it's seventy two pages and is easily fitted into your old school or OSR campaigns. And this makes this adventure ideal for OSRIC! Drop this adventure in right after B2 Keep on The Borderlands. 



























Could Severed Fate be used easily with other OSR systems?! Short answer, yes. This module  could be combined with Castles & Crusades without much fuss. And infact if the DM wanted this module could easily be dropped into Greyhawk or similar campaigns running C&C as it's main system. 
The reasons for this are the focus on the wilderness, the NPC's, flexible locations, and more. Severed Fate is well thought out and needs more leads into it's own campaign setting though. This isn't a criticism however only a minor point of contension on my part as a DM. Over the team of 
 John Keefe and Laurel Nicholson who once worked for Mayfair Games as a part of the Role Aids adventure modules.The quality of Severed Fate continues this tradition in spades. 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.