SPOILER WARNING: This review discusses events portrayed in
The Legion of Lost Souls, book three of the
Witchfire Trilogy. The first book,
The Longest Night, has been reviewed
here, and the second book,
Shadow of the Exile, has been reviewed
here.
At the end of Shadow of the Exile the City of Corvis had been seized by the exiled King Vinter Raelthorne and his allies. Legion begins with the PCs in possession of the Witchblade, a powerful artifact, and avoiding Raelthorne’s Inquisitors, their ally Father Dumas in hiding, and their nemesis the sorceress Alexia presumed dead. The PCs soon discover that Alexia is alive and now interested in working with the PCs against Raelthorne. Father Dumas soon recommends that the Witchfire be used to raise a famous mercenary legion from its lost crypt. As Alexia is one of the few people who can safely wield the Witchfire, the PCs will have to work with her.
To assist the PCs in opening the legion’s crypt, Dumas recommends that the PCs recover another artifact from its resting place beneath a temple that has subsided beneath a marsh that has since become one of Corvis’ poorer and most dangerous neighborhoods that the PCs may have already explored if they played Fool’s Errand a short adventure available from Privateer Press (www.ironkingdoms.com). The artifact is a giant’s hammer that was wielded by a giant that had lived in Corvis as a paladin of Morrow. The search leads the PCs into Corvis’ Undercity where the entrance to the former temple is now located. The temple is a mini-dungeon and the lair of a deranged rogue and ghost of the temple’s last priest.
Recovery of the hammer is one thing, getting it out of the Undercity and out of Corvis is another. The hammer is twelve feet long and weighs 400 pounds. However, the PCs run into an old friend who just happens to be leaving Corvis on a ship with a steamjack. Once out of the city, the PCs must make their way to the Dragonspine Peaks and the legion’s tomb. At the legion’s tomb, the PCs discover that remains of other adventuring parties that have all attempted to open the tomb without success. Once inside the tomb, the PCs must pass through six rooms and six tests before entering the legion’s crypt. Alexia then arrives to wake the dead and set them on the march back to Corvis.
As the PCs and the legion approach Corvis, a message reaches them from their Captain Helstrom. Helstrom asks the PCs to ride ahead of the legion and seize the city’s north gate so that the legion can enter the city safely. After seizing the gatehouse, the PCs then move through the city to the Black River Bridge and the big climax as the legion clashes with the Skorne army.
Legion is organized into three acts. Each act begins with a summary of what will occur and current events relevant to the act. Events within each act are broken down into encounters, tasks, and scenes. Encounters with NPCs begin with a statement of purpose and often include a set of potential questions and answers to aid a GM in playing out the encounters.
Information is provided on the mercenary tradition in the Iron Kingdoms, the Church of Morrow, and cannons. Appendixes include stat blocks for all of the creatures encountered during the adventure, each of the major characters, and the Witchblade as well as information on the languages of the Iron Kingdoms. Sidebars throughout the text include additional information on people, places, and items encountered during the adventure. The art also does a great job of evoking the dark, leather-buckled, steampunk style of the Iron Kingdoms.
Although the adventure is laid out in a linear style, for the most part, the PCs are led from event to event so that they should not feel that they are being railroaded. The noted exception is the trip to the Undercity and the escape from the city with the hammer. This section is a notable lag in the adventure and is the one of the few places where Privateer Press lapses in not provided sufficient information. If a party does not go along with the proposed plan for the rescue of the hammer and its removal from the City, Legion really does not provide enough information about the river patrols and other means for getting the hammer out of the city. The hammer itself is a great image and a classic example of the powerful artifact that is almost more trouble than it is worth. Also, I am not sure that the designers have thought through how the hammer’s destructive capabilities could be used to take apart the traps guarding the Legion’s crypt. At a minimum, a GM should probably encourage a party to develop an exit plan before they recover the hammer. In the alternative, a GM may want to move the ruined temple to a location outside of Corvis or come-up with an alternative to using the hammer.
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