Thursday, December 21, 2023

Review & Commentary On Warrens of the Great Goblin Chief (Revised and Expanded Edition) By Dominick Pelletier From Johnny Rook Games, LLC For Your Old School Campaigns

 "A wagon containing the estate of a recently deceased thief has gone missing on its way down The Great Copperdawn Road somewhere between Glen's End and the town of Westgate. The local tax assessor hires the PCs to seek it out and recover some its...more valuable cargo. The task seems easy enough! Still, rumors abound of bandits, goblins, and all other manner of strange creatures in the area as possible dangerous suspects to the disappearance." 




"As the search begins, the PCs discover that they are not the only ones looking for this wagon. Assassins, cultists, knights, and soldiers are also on the hunt. The PCs quickly find themselves entangled in a web of intrigues on all sides. A truth must be uncovered involving stolen magic, betrayl, foul humanoids, and ultimately a journey deep inside The Warrens of the Great Goblin Chief!"

 Warrens of the Great Goblin Chief (Revised and Expanded Edition) By Dominick Pelletier is a highly unusual animal in the world of OSR adventure modules. Why?! Because this is a 1st level mini adventure campaign and it clocks in at a hundred and thirty two pages. Warrens is actually very good even at an extensive one thirty two pages of adventures. What makes Warrens so good is the content and the encounters. This is a mini OSR module campaign that has everything a DM needs:


1 96-page Adventure module

1 36-page Game Master Companion

1 3'x2' double-sided poster map

And this also includes weather tables, a fleet of NPC's that are actually centered around the module, calender of weather events, notable encounters, and much more. 
Encounters are balanced but lean a bit on the deadly side as is the old school way. This Warrens can be dropped whole cloth into an existing campaign setting and then run from the ground up. The author is on point, the layout is well done, the fonts actually readable, and whole module is worth the material it's printed on. 
The focus here is on the adventure's plot and it ensnares the player's PC's quite early. And this means keeping the player's interest in spades. There is everything here from social encounters to full on dungeon crawling. And it's handled effectively. This makes 
 Warrens of the Great Goblin Chief excellent for OSRIC or even Castles & Crusades. And especially a Castles & Crusades game set in Greyhawk being run with the C&C  system. 

But what makes Warrens fun and unique is that all of this action is taking place at first level! That means that there's a Hell of a chance of the player's PC's getting themselves in over thier heads. 


























Warrens of the Great Goblin Chief is an unusual beast of a module allowing it too straddle it's social encounters with dungeon crawling later on. And it's a great 1st level adventure that never assumes it's player's PC's for granted by having it's NPC's over shadowing the plaeyer's PC's at anytime. And make no mistake Warrens of the Great Goblin Chief  is a mini campaign and a very well done one at that. 

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