An Endzeitgeist.com review

This module for 13th Age clocks in at 23 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 1 page advertisement, leaving us with 19 pages of content, so let's take a look!

The first thing you need to know pertaining this module is the structure: Wade Rockett's excellent icons (first introduced on the Kobold Press blog and in the 13th Age Deep Magic book) have a hand in the action going on in this module - they determine the approach to the item the players are after. And it should be noted that the items actually come with suggested abilities. The module can be played in a 4-hour slot, but can be hastened to a 2-hour high-intensity action-romp, with proper guidelines provided - I actually tried it out and it works!

This being a review of an adventurer-tier module, the following contains SPOILERS. Potential players should steer clear and skip ahead to the conclusion.

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All right, still here? Great! Okay, so I already mentioned that the module obviously has a significantly modular structure, right? Well, the module is all about recovering the aforementioned item of power from a dwarven airship that has crashed in the desolation of the tainted Wasted West, which is now inhabited by the deadly, undead former crew. Depending on the icons the GM chooses, you may choose a rival faction of adversaries - a total of no less than 5 such teams are provided: From Mharoti explorers to shadow fey and minotaurs or derros, the teams come all on their own, handy cheat sheets, including notes on their size depending on PC group-size. Beyond that, befitting of the horribly-mutating nature of the wasted west, the module provides suggestions for reskins of the creatures herein. As a whole, the set-up provided for the GM allows for a significant replay value and the option to easily add in more groups if the players have too easy a time when dealing with the adversaries.

The module's actions begin with the ramshackle town of "Small Comfort", ominously named and the fully mapped, and it is here a portal with blow open and potentially render the small and desolate place a full-blown battle-field between the adventurers and the rival team. Pressing forward and potentially leaving ruins behind, the PCs will descend into the deathless defile, where a village of the notorious ghost goblins rests and allows for either diplomatic or lethal problem-solving. Beyond these, PCs will have a chance to eliminate another group of rivals and, when finally reaching the eponymous, crashed Volund's Glory, the PCs will have to eliminate the dread undead that once were the crew to claim their due.

The copious appendices also include an array of neat adventurer-tier magic items and yes, we get brief icon sketches, enough to run it.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I noticed no significant glitches. Layout adheres to Kobold Press' beautiful two-column full-color standard and the pdf comes fully bookmarked. The cover artwork is also represented in this book in a gorgeous full-color page.

Wade Rockett's "Wreck of Volund's Glory" is perfect for quick, fast-paced no-frills convention play; think of this as a kind of highly modular, fast-paced action romp through a kind of post-apocalyptic environment. With speed, evocative backdrops and a high-paced set-up, this module is all about presenting some of the highlights of the evocative Wasted West. The module itself is pretty simple, but, like a good action movie, it works exceedingly well...and turns out different in every time you play it, which is pretty cool indeed. Ultimately, this renders the book a fun, fast-paced action-module well worth of a final verdict of 5 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.

I've run this adventure for both a group of experienced 13th Age players and a group with no tabletop RPG experience at all. In each case, we had a great time. This adventure is fast-paced, with enough options to prevent the players from feeling railroaded, yet without being so sprawling that newcomers to the hobby are paralyzed by overwhelming choices. The adventure is set in Kobold Press' Midgard Campaign Setting, drawing upon its rich geography and key personalities (icons). If you enjoy Midgard's other products and adventures, this adventure will fit right in with your collection. This adventure is particularly exciting, because for the first time, I didn't have to convert monsters, magic items, and NPCs into the 13th Age system -- something I've been doing for the past couple years with Kobold Press' Pathfinder and D&D 4E lines of products.

I ran this as part of a campaign based in Midgard, as well as transplanting the adventure into 13th Age's default setting, the Dragon Empire, for another campaign. It worked equally well in both cases, although I had to modify the icon involvement and locations for the Dragon Empire. If you're comfortable using adventures from other campaign settings, then the work needed to run this adventure in the setting of your choice is minimal.

Overall, I enjoyed that this adventure helped shape the direction the story would take, based on the icons the PCs have relationships with. This is important to 13th Age games, and is often the most challenging thing to produce when converting Pathfinder or D&D adventures into 13th Age. Thankfully, Wade Rockett has already done that for us, providing alternate encounters, depending up on the icons that are important to your players. If you enjoy 13th Age and/or Midgard, I recommend checking this adventure out.