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Harvest of Darkness
 
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Harvest of Darkness
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Harvest of Darkness
Publisher: Kenzer & Company
by John S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/01/2011 15:58:37

Harvest of Darkness is a 64 page multi-adventure supplement set in the Kingdoms of Kalamar. It contains four lightly horror themed adventures that are very loosely linked together and which were originally published as separate adventures. The adventures take up 32 pages, there are 16 pages of npc and monster stat blocs, two new magic items, a new spell, six new templates, some new monsters, a couple organizations and a discussion of lizardfolk in Kalamar. The final 16 pages are maps and black and white pictures of specific characters and scenes from the adventures that are to be used as handouts.

The gods and faiths used throughout the adventures were fairly archetypal and I easily thought up replacements for most of them in the Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and Scarred Lands settings. The adventures are written by different authors and are for four different sets of levels. The links from one adventure to the next are very loose and the only theme is one of confronting evil.

The suggested party numbers and levels breaks down as follows: the first one is for three to six first-level characters, the second is for three to five third- to fifth-level characters, the third adventure is for four to six fifth- to seventh-level characters and the last one is for five to seven seventh- to ninth-level characters. This is odd because only a party of five characters will meet the exact design specs for each one, but this is understandable because these are a collection of reprinted adventures.

The advice for scaling the adventures is mostly limited to saying: adjust the power of the monsters to match the party levels. Unfortunately it includes no specifics on how to do so. In the first adventure there is a little advice on using the NPCs as support in the climactic battles.

The styles of the adventures break down as follows:

The first adventure starts off with interactions, investigation and possible conflicts. There are opportunities for the party to be hired by multiple people, many of them unsavory, and the consequences of having many employers. Some of the side investigations can lead to combat that is way beyond the characters capabilities, but combat can be avoided. Once the actual problem area is investigated there is a straightforward combat with the villains followed by a short victory break and then time sensitive emergency combats that will resolve the situation. This adventure ends with a definite horror theme that is done well. The only detraction here is that many PCs could cause logistical problems for the DM in the final conflicts if they are thorough with an axe and fire.

Many of the inhabitants of the small village are done out and can make interesting NPCs. One interesting aspect is the prevalence of openly evil but accepted npcs, including evil faiths and slaver hobgoblin merchants. The tensions and problems of interacting with these people looks promising for creating roleplaying opportunities.

The second adventure is a straightforward hook of help the good guys retrieve something that was taken. It is an underground crawl that is mostly problem solving with really tough almost insured death scenes for screwing up. There is some good intrigue involving what is really going on and successful parties will have a built in hook for the next adventure or an easy opportunity for the DM to introduce a hook for what he wants to set up next.

The adventure says that it can be used to bring first level replacement characters up to the level of the rest of the party and suggests letting them advance multiple levels. While it is possible for first level characters to navigate the entire dungeon and avoid the combats, it is more likely they will hit the first guardians who will slaughter first level characters pretty easily.

Also the head villain is poorly set up in many ways. He is a high wisdom cleric who has no access to spells. He has no feats to make the things in his dungeon. He has a ring with three blasts that his god recharges “as needed” and no other weapons or combat abilities except extra turning (while he has a 5 charisma). In his next door treasure room there are a magic weapon and an offensive potion. This is rationalized by his being mentally disturbed. If the characters figure out his puzzle he dies pretty instantly, but if they don’t he assaults them with the three blasts of his ring. This should be a party kill but if not he only has his untrained fists left to deal with the party. It is unclear whether his god would give him unlimited blasts in an ongoing battle. Since the puzzle could reasonably not be figured out in the time limit, I think he should have gotten normal spells used the weapon available to him, and not needed direct divine intervention for his item.

The third adventure has the party helping out find lost people and clear monsters from an area. This leads to interactions with the kidnappers and the party helping them out with the monster that is extorting sacrifices from them. An NPC who has gone up against the monster before joins the party and can provides some background. He can let the party know the monster is tough and when it is sleeping and therefore at its most vulnerable. Once the monster is vanquished there is an evil that gets released. Since it is powerful but in a weakened state, it will confront the party, but if it does not successfully overcome them quickly it will escape (and it has the means to do so realistically). This leaves a powerful villain with ties to the party for the DM to use as he wishes. The descriptions of the monsters lair are evocative and well thought out. There are areas to explore and traps and lesser minions to overcome. If the party is careful and strikes at the right time with power ups prepared, they should do well, if the monster is confronted at other times it could turn out very badly for the party. One detraction is that there are no guidelines for determining if the monster wakes up, some of the traps seem like they would be loud, and combats near the beast could conceivably wake it but these possibilities are not addressed. Also the ancient evil has a neat background story but no method is provided to introduce it to the party.

The fourth adventure is a straightforward dungeon crawl in an ancient tomb complex. It reminded me a little of the crypts in the original Ravenloft where there is treasure, traps and monsters with developed info on the stately dead to be discovered. Some of the encounters seemed like they could easily be overcome by smart, aggressive or just quick action by PCs. There is a little tie to the released evil villain from the last adventure but this is not developed and he is provided with no reason to be there or explanation of what he would be doing there.

After the adventures there is a good list of issues that the adventures may have left unresolved or repercussions of the PC actions that can be used as adventure seeds. Also there is information on various organizations, cults, and secret societies introduced in the adventures.

There are new templates for ghouls, pseudo ghouls, and four progressing types of pseudo vampires. The pseudo vampires are a particularly nice variation of the standard D&D type. I really liked the rules for the effects of not feeding, leading to specific weaknesses that still leave them potent threats. There is also the blood rage that overcomes them when they are hungry and they smell mortal blood.

There are new monsters including a conversion of the eye of fire and flame which is an outsider instead of an undead as I remember them from the 1e Fiend Folio. All the new monsters have only small stat blocs, not the full entries of the Monster Manual. Although they are not considered new monsters in the adventure, the lesser iron golems were a neat extrapolation of the common ones and I would have appreciated construction rules for these reduced golems.

There are new magic items and a new spell. The spell seems a bit high powered combining the essential effects of a Leomund’s secret chest and a temporal stasis for a fourth level arcane spell.

The 16 pages of imagequest images look like they will photocopy well and can be evocative. I particularly liked the pictures of the attacking harvester, the skeleton surprise, the sleeping beast, the sharjani (which would also work for a group of wights) and the area or item pictures. Some of the human people did not look quite right in their proportions and the average strength ranger has the biceps of a bodybuilder.

If you are looking for a couple good adventures with good supporting material, or want alternate vampires, I would recommend this adventure set. There are some minor problems with some of the balance, one of the cleric villains, and some of the tie-ins. There is no one story underlying the adventures so if you are looking for a mega adventure or themed adventures that can be used as a single cohesive substory in your campaign, this is not that product.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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