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Five Room Dungeon: The Rabbit Hole $5.99
Average Rating:5.0 / 5
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Five Room Dungeon: The Rabbit Hole
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Five Room Dungeon: The Rabbit Hole
Publisher: Rite Publishing
by Aaron H. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/05/2012 14:34:56

The following review was originally posted at Roleplayers Chronicle and can be read in its entirety at http://roleplayerschronicle.com/?p=19815.

Alice had it easy! The Rabbit Hole is an extra dimensional trip that dreams are made of literally. While 5 “rooms” might not seem like much, this adventure will turn players and GMs in directions they never thought or dreamed they would go.

OVERALL

WOW! I have seen some interesting concepts for dungeons, but this takes the crumpet! (tea anyone?). I am astounded by the way the trio of Ben McFarland, Clinton J. Boomer and Matt Banach were able to shove 10 rooms of adventure into a 5 room dungeon!

RATINGS

Publication Quality: 8 out of 10 Rite Publishing used a black faux leather cover pattern instead of their normal brown. Some of their more recent products have used a variation of colors and I applaud Rite for mixing things up. The cover art by Mark Hyzer would make Lovecraft proud, and it looks great in black and white. The cartography by Jonathan Roberts is top notch. The actual depiction of what I can best describe as flexibly amorphous rooms were elegant in their execution. Instead of their normal page border patterns, Steven D. Russell and company went with a full color sort of starry night type of drawing on the header and footer of the page (as found in Coliseum Morpheuon). This touch added a dream like quality to an adventure that focuses on those subconscious thoughts that occupy our thoughts when we sleep.

This product lost points for a few reasons, such as some misspellings, but this is minor. There were a few times when the information from knowledge checks seemed to cut off abruptly. In one case it looked as though if the players got a higher result on their knowledge check, they would have the rest of the knowledge contained in the descriptive sentence. If this was the writer’s intention, it didn’t work. There was no indication in the beginning of the adventure as to the recommended level of the players. Not a big issue but it should be noted in a more immediate and obvious location. I think some of the adventure background information could have been re-ordered to make more sense for the GM, but I will confess that I have been brainwashed by the big companies to look for a specific format.

Mechanics: 9 out of 10 There was only one small problem with the mechanics in Five Room Dungeon: The Rabbit Hole. Regardless, this adventure takes the idea of a dimension with flexible laws of gravity and even reality and puts a set of logical if not a bit complicated set of rules to them. This is no minor feat. Anytime designers and writers can place useable mechanics onto a high concept that can change based on the most unpredictable factor of them all (the player), you have something that us mere mortals are not worthy of (cue Wayne and Garth).

Desire to Play: 9 out of 10 This product was designed for a very specific setting and while it could be tweaked to be used elsewhere, its lack of modularity was my only complaint. The fact that this adventure is for high-level characters might cause problems for some and limit the audience to use within the upper levels of the Coliseum Morpheuon adventure, but don’t let that stop you from adding this to your bookshelf (real or virtual). The rules that cover situations where the player can change the surrounding environment and the rules of gravity are worth the full cost of this product. The cartography is outstanding and the complex thought processes that went into creating this should be acknowledged with your money and support!

Overall: 9 out of 10 This adventure is unique in ways I can’t even begin to describe. I went into this product thinking it was going to be a kind of tongue and cheek Alice in Wonderland set up. I was right and I was wrong, there are a few well-done homages to AIW, but those were serious and added great, spicy flavor to the adventure. This adventure does so much to help the GM set the mood and bring a twisted dream realm to life in ways that would make James Cameron blue with envy. Products this complex and well-thought out are rarely produced, and when they are, they are often too complex and not useable. Five Room Dungeons: The Rabbit Hole is the type of product lesser companies could only dream of making.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Five Room Dungeon: The Rabbit Hole
Publisher: Rite Publishing
by Thilo G. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/06/2012 11:01:44

This pdf is 29 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD and 2 pages of advertisements, leaving 24 pages of content, so let's check out this adventure!

This being an adventure review, the following contains SPOILERS. Potential players should jump to the conclusion.

Still here? All right! This 5-room dungeon transcends the format of the premise by several factors but let me elaborate: This adventure is set in the Coliseum Morpheuon and it rocks for it - why? Because there is a place that surpasses even the Coliseum in weirdness and potential: The Rabbit Hole. Being on the realm of dreams, otherwordly beings and dread presences, aberrations and stranger things still dream as well, combining their alien minds with the sub-conscious dribble and madness seeping through the realm of dreams. In this place, people discard their dreams, throw them there to wither away - after all, dreams can destroy one as easily as a lack of them, especially on the plane of dreams!

More intriguing, once, a sorceror discarded a dream there - a dream of madness that might have destroyed said man - who happens to be the Khan of Nightmares. Born out of his betrayal of his pit-fiend ally, the sinkhole remains a dangerous demi-planar cesspit of death and now Tarrec, a peddler of dreams, hires the PCs to brave the rabbit hole. The peddler wants the PCs to go to a tavern called "The Face" where the PCs have to put a mirror on a tentacled wall horizontal (e.g. by gravity-change), put liquid on it and enter the rabbit hole. The tavern is presented with enough information to make for a disturbing introduction to the adventure and I hope to see it expanded some time in the future (Jonathan Roberts - looking for a challenge?). Jonathan Roberts is a good cue - the stellar cartographer provides a stunning full-color map of the 5 stations (I refuse to call them rooms) of this adventure. Another awesome feature of this adventure is that PCs may actually dream-burn like hell, dream-burning and morphic subjective gravity are enhanced and here, anyone may use dream-creation. I LOVE these innovations, as the expand upon the stellar mechanics of dreamburning and make the possibilities available to the PCs wider.

The adventure per se hasn't even started and it starts with a bang - the PCs fall through the floor - falling is not enough of a threat, though - The Kulkale , a CR 19 Tough Gargantuan Chaos Beastling Apocalypse Swarm is not to be trifles with and makes for a truly deadly, disturbing foe. Of course, no allusion to Alice in Wonderland would be complete without a tea-party. This one includes shard-laden crumpets and acidic tea - worst of all, the PCs should play along. Have I mentioned that the hatter here is an insane sadist whom the PCs have to appease to avoid the fate of the other tea-party guests? The third section is a moebius-loop-like labyrinth including a pack lycanthrope-nessian hellhound adamantine-clad creatures with 15 class levels. Ouch! After that, a Eldritch Shoggoth serves as the final combat encounter before the conclusion, which depends not only on the DM and his version of the coliseum, but has potential galore to be used in even more ways than provided.

Conclusion: Editing and Formatting of V.2.0 are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to the beautiful 2-column full-color standard used in Coliseum Morpheuon and the pdf features a nice mix of classic Alice-illustrations and CM-artwork. The full-color map by Jonathan Roberts is awesome and the pdf comes with bookmarks. This is an awesome adventure that redefines 5-room dungeons. The expanded dream-rules are great. The locations, each of them, oozes style and symbolism. The Alice-allusions are dark, creepy and sufficiently distinct from e.g. Crystal Frazier's stellar "The Harrowing" or the classic Dungeonland. I have but one problem with this adventure: It is only 5 rooms long. I would have loved a full-blown cthulhoid, nightmarish, high-level Alice-scenario - preferably around 128 to 200 pages. This distinct longing for more, the captivating pull the adventure exerted over me while reading it, the imagery - this 5-room dungeon belongs to the coolest little scenarios I've read in quite a while and thus deserves my highest verdict - 5 stars and the Endzeitgeist seal of approval - Ben McFarland, Clinton Boomer and Matt Banach have created a stellar scenario with trademark complex statblocks that alone are probably worth the asking-price. Check it out!

Endzeitgeist out.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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