The Blasphemous Brewery of Pilz! is a wilderness and dungeon adventure for the Labyrinth Lord system suitable for characters from 3rd to 7th level. It is written as a standalone adventure, but provides enough material to morph the adventure into the seed for an entire campaign.

OVERALL

While the change of taste and price of a local mountain mushroom-based stout is concerning the locals, it is the disappearance of the Monks that brew it that has spurred the local authorities into action. As the characters delve into the mystery they will soon discovery that there is more going on behind the scenes than a coppery taste to a once loved brew. This 17 page long adventure is an interesting mix of subtle humor and dark doings that has enough intrigue to keep roleplayers engaged, while offering enough combat to satisfy the hack-and-slash in most gamers.

RATINGS

Publication Quality: 7 out of 10 This appears to be the first for sale adventure from Digital Orc and for a first product it is surprisingly well done. For me the best way to describe the art is quaint. I can see heavy influence from the 3rd edition Tome of Horrors from Necromancer. My favorite art was on the front “cover” that depicted the silhouette of a burpee brandishing a shield and what looks like a sword. I appreciate that the author/artist placed the art in the right places, it synched well with the text. The text and charts were well done and easy to read. This adventure lost most of its points due to the placement of creature statistics, tables and maps. Most of the maps are at the end of the adventure and the descriptions of the locations on the maps are in the beginning. Not a deal breaker, but attention to little details like these easily makes a small publisher seem much bigger. I do have to give a special shout out to the maps and the rumor chart. The maps are not the most beautiful I’ve seen but they are effective. I was happy to see a map of a mine that actually looked like a mine, not a labyrinth or a maze. The Shattenburg Rumor chart is elegant in its’ simplicity and usability.

Storyline: 9 out of 10 The Blasphemous Brewery of Pilz! actually has two or three storylines going at the same time and all of them are worth following. Dylan Hartwell has an interesting take on elves that breaks quite a few norms without being over-the-top. The happenings at the brewery are truly just the tip of the iceberg.

Desire to Play: 9 out of 10 Because of the sandbox nature of this adventure I can’t wait to insert The Blasphemous Brewery of Pliz! into the next fantasy game I run. I am interested to see how long the first part of this adventure plays out as it seems like it would be a great adventure for a Con. There is just enough information about the town of Shattenberg and the surrounding area to get the wheels in my sick little monkey mind moving.

Overall: 8 out of 10 At $2.99 USD this is a solid product that provides the tools to run a single session adventure or to lay a foundation for an ongoing campaign complete with a suitable base of operations, merchants guilds, angry elves and more. This adventure was well thought out, solidly designed and you can tell it was actually play tested; I am excited to run this adventure and to see just what Dylan Hartwell the Digital Orc has in store for us in the future.

(review originally posted at tenkarstavern.com)

First, I'd like to thank Dylan Hartwell for supplying me with a review copy. Good stuff.

Now, on to the review - The Blasphemous Brewery of Pilz! (you had me at "brewery"... heh) is a Labyrinth Lord adventure for levels 3-7. It's a large level range to cover, especially at lower levels, where the power curve is a bit stronger then at higher levels, but in the hands of the right GM it should work.

The BBof P! is not just an adventure, but it's also is the bare bones of a sandbox setting of the area around the town of Shattenburg. At this point I think I need to mention something - run as written, Elven PCs need not apply. Alright, they may apply, but it should be downright uncomfortable for them. It's actually a nice twist to the usually vanilla fantasy setting - any elves the PCs encounter in town are likely to be servants, and fairly oppressed at that.

Anyhow, on to the rest of the book. In presentation and in atmosphere, it seems to me to be a very good fit for Tunnels & Trolls in addition to the usual listing of OSR RPG systems. It doesn't take itself too seriously, yet at the same time there is a dark side to much of it.

If there is a weakness to the adventure, its the hook. I actually missed it on my first read through, as it's actually on the front page as part of adventure recap / description. In any case, it's hard to get a pre-written hook that fits your party's needs in a published adventure, even when multiple ones are supplied. So, as weaknesses go, its a minor one.

If you are a GM that likes to tweak and twist published adventures into something that fits your style, the Blasphemous Brewery of Pilz! would be a good choice. If you want something that tries to cover all of your party's possible actions and totally in depth descriptions that you can read to your group, you'll probably find this lacking.

I'm a twist and tweaker myself ;)

(edit - forgot to mention the maps are works of art - detailed without being cluttered)