The Shattered Skull is a 56 page OSRIC adventure from Usherwood Publishing, and is the 2nd adventure in the Bone-hilt Sword campaign, following on from the first adventure, Yrchyn, the Tyrant. This adventure can either be played as part of the campaign series, or as a stand-alone product, and details on how to adjust the module to both ends are provided in the product. This adventure sees the characters delve further into the mines of Yrchyn, the Tyrant, and uncover a blood-thirsty tribe of orcs responsible for all sorts of atrocities. The party must face these beasts in the dark caverns, and uncover their association with Yrchyn and the mystery they are searching for. The Shattered Skull is suitable for a party of 4 to 6 characters of levels 2 to 4.

The Shattered Skull is one of the best presented products I've seen. It ticks all the boxes - reat layout and design, great art, fantastic maps, great attention to detail, and finally useful additions to enhance the product. Usherwood Publishing have done a splendid job of presenting a smart product designed to mimic that old-school OSRIC feel, and to do that in spades. It includes several new monsters, a very useful and detailed character sheet, pre-generated PCs and NPCs - pretty much everything one could ask for in terms of utilities for an adventure. The maps are beautiful and clear, the art (mostly stock art, it should be said) is vibrant and colourful, and the writing and attention to detail craft an adventure that provides all the detail. Splendid presentation in The Shattered Skull. This is an OSRIC presentation at its best.

This adventure follows on from the exploits of the characters in the first book of the Bone-hilt Sword campaign. If your players have played that adventure, this adventure offers a natural continuation of the events in Yrchyn, the Tyrant. If this is played as a stand-alone adventure, the product offers some plot hooks to get your to the dark mines and caverns of the Shattered Skull orc tribe, and treats the first level of the mines as largely abandoned (having assumed that the kobolds of Yrchyn have been routed).

The real meat of the adventure, though, takes place as the characters delve deeper into the mines, and take on the might of the Shattered Skull tribe, unravelling their purpose in the mines, and the nature of that which they seek. One little nitpick about the plot hooks provided is that the caverns are said to be located roughly 75 miles from the small town where the party received their quest. One wouldn't be hard pressed to not question this distance, and whether any orc party would be raiding that far from a designated stronghold.

As mentioned before, the meat of this adventure sees the characters arrayed against the might of a brutal orc tribe. Inside this complex they must defeat the guards and associated of the orc chieftain, and in doing so uncover the truth of the orcs' presence. The campaign details of the adventure are largely kept in the appendix, meaning that it makes the adventure easier to run as a stand-alone. The campaign details themselves offer tantalising details on the adventure background, the future of the campaign and its subsequent adventures, and indeed the machinations of the orcs in the caverns. The adventure is largely a dungeon-crawl based adventure, with little opportunity for roleplaying (barring finding a few prisoners), and I wish the adventure had included more details for roleplaying certain encounters. On the other hand more details on handling multiple excursions and dynamic strategies of the orcs in the mines would've been very useful, particularly given some of the unique features of the cavern maps. As is, the adventure does provide strategies for guards in the mines, but only on a short-term basis.

The latter part of the product contains the many detailed appendices, including campaign notes; new monsters which include a new orc variant, deep dwarves, evil excretions and others, and lastly the many maps, village details, further campaign details, and the pre-generated characters, NPCs and character sheet. The combination of all these additions make for a very complete and detailed adventure with lots of additional utility, and one that can be readily played on short notice.

I'm quite pleased with the effort that's gone into this adventure, particularly the presentation and attention to detail, and indeed the adventure itself. On the other hand, more could've been done to make this more of a dynamic dungeon crawl, rather than a fairly static affair as it is at present. The versatility of the combat encounters is good, and PCs will face a variety of challenges, although roleplaying is largely limited. Overall, a very good adventure, and it looks like the Bone-hilt Sword campaign is shaping up to be something that is worthwhile taking a look at with the aim of playing.