The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Scoundrel's Folly: The Erebus Cross: Part Two

for 7th Sea

by Rob Vaux

64 pages, perfect bound

$11.95

reviewed by Lisa Padol

Playtesters: Avram Grumer, Fred Herman, Joshua Kronengold, Matt Stevens

Grade: C+

The second part of The Erebus Cross adventure is bundled with the second part of the Explorers' Guild material. While I still am still annoyed that both the adventure and the Explorers' Guild material are divided, like Gaul, into three parts, the Explorers' Guild material continues to be good, and the second part of the adventure is better than the first.

NOTE: In a move of stunning coolness, AEG released the Compendium for 7th Sea. This is free of charge for anyone owning either the GM's or the Player's Guide for 7th Sea. The Compendium reprints a lot of material on the Explorers' Guild, but not the material found in Scoundrel's Folly. We now return to our regular review.

Just like the previous part of The Erebus Cross, the adventure in Scoundrel's Folly is divided into four hard points which the author considers essential to the plot. These are followed by soft points, or optional encounters, which can be inserted or not, as the GM chooses.

In the first part, the PCs have one of two magically linked compasses. The second is held by a mysterious villain, and the PCs receive dire visions about what he might do with it. The hook proved good, as I thought it would.

Our Heroes went to consult Reginald Coleson, a member of the Explorer's Society whom they had met when I ran part one of the adventure. There, the baron he was staying with had no name, but here, a name was supplied, Stefan Heilgrund. The PCs got Heilgrund to fund their expedition.

The material about Heilgrund's castle is well done. There is room for complex intrigue, if the PCs want it. Or, they can simply get the Baron's help and move on. Or, they can get into trouble and be forced to leave the castle in a hurry. There is a refreshing amount of choice here, something lacking from The Lady's Favor, the previous part of The Erebus Cross.

Whatever their status on leaving the castle, Our Heroes' next logical step is Freiburg, where they can begin to look for a ship to take them to the island they saw in their vision, whose location should have been discovered at the castle. If the PCs get into too much trouble too quickly, Coleson can put the clues together, although he will not be as friendly as he was.

The second part of Scoundrel's Folly has a minor encounter which may not occur. It is not necessary to the plot, but the author clearly wants the PCs to meet a favorite NPC in the Explorer safehouse in Freiburg. However, only PCs who are members of the Explorer's Society are allowed into the safehouse. A perfectly reasonable precaution, but not one of the 8 PCs in the group, including the two who were en route to Montaigne with an army, was a member. Fred had wanted one of his PCs to be a member, but the rules say that a PC can only be a member of one secret society at the start of play, and it made more sense for Keith, Fred's PC, to be a member of the Rilasciare. From my point of view, this is not a problem since the PCs do not have to enter the safehouse with Coleson, but it's something the author needed to take into account.

In any case, the PCs probably sail to Caerleon, where they have to convince the notorious Berek to sail them to their destination. Since they know this destination is an island guarded by a Montaigne blockade and since Berek enjoys outsmarting the Montaigne, this should not prove too difficult. Moreover, the adventure is open enough that the author recognizes that the PCs may be on a different ship.

There is one false note in the Avalon section. As in the Freiburg section, it involves the Explorers' Society. It appears from the text that non-Explorers can accompany Coleson to the Society's charter house in Carleon. This makes sense, as Carleon is a safer area for them. And a good thing, too, as there is an important link between Scoundrel's Folly and Arrow of Heaven, the third and final part of The Erebus Cross, in the charter house. Coleson sees a picture of a Vodacce ruin with a mosaic depicting the same pattern of symbol as that found on the PCs' compass. Coleson immediately asks for permission to lead an expedition there. Turned down with no explanation, he nevertheless determines to explore on his own. The PCs are not to accompany him, for they must prevent villainy on an island in Montaigne.

But what if one or more PCs insist on accompanying Coleson? The GM can't really allow that if she wants to keep all of the PCs active. Scoundrel's Folly does not cover what happens to Coleson, and even if one has Arrow of Heaven on hand, Coleson and his crew are the mcguffin, existing to be found, not to be active participants in the action. Unless they want to re-write the adventure extensively, GMs need to get players to agree that their PCs have no desire to split up to help their friend or to learn the rest of the mystery of the compasses.

Fred did not have Keith insist on accompanying Coleson, as I had feared. Instead, for reasons that baffle me and now escape him, Fred decided that Coleson was clearly a spy. I suspect that he was smelling the rat of enforced plots, but was mistaken as to what variety of rat it was.

At this point, I added a couple of optional encounters, one of which involves Vesten raiders performing a shamanic ritual. PCs are allowed to witness it, although Vendel heroes should remain on board. A prudent suggestion, but when are PCs ever prudent? There is no clue given about what happens to curious Vendel. I was fortunate that Josh's PC with Vendel/Vesten magic, who was quite curious to see the ritual, was technically Avalonian.

The third hard point is the approach to the island. The site of Syrneth ruins and unspecified villainy has a Montaigne blockade around it to protect the privacy of decadent nobles who hunt monsters, as well as beasts maddened from being subjected to teleportation. This was fairly easy for my group: Josh's Avalonian conjured up a storm with Laerdom. Under its cover, a small boat or two slipped passed the Montaigne.

The final hard point is the confrontation with Lucius Malveck, the villain of the piece. Safely behind magical wards, which, I presume, also prevent folks from reaching him with Porte magic, Malveck explains that the visions were a mere ruse to get the other compass to the island. He has no dire plan for the world at large; he only plans to hold the decadent Montaigne on the island hostage. Using his compass, he can draw the PCs' compass to him--No Matter What--and when the two compasses touch, any Montaigne inside a building is trapped inside. Meanwhile the protective wards on the island are disabled. The monsters are no longer kept at bay.

And, in a lovely touch, neither are the PCs. The wards keeping the PCs from stopping Malveck vanishes the instant he completes his dastardly plan. It is both logical and believable that he would miss spotting the flaw in his plans.

However, there is a very real chance that the PCs will not object to his plans. True, they have been used, but, as Fred pointed out, there is no world-threatening evil plan, and his Rilisciare PC, Keith, didn't see what was so wrong with the plan. The nobles wouldn't even be hurt, as they were safe from the monsters and had food and drink to last a while.

The author is aware that PCs might be sympathetic towards Malveck, who is allowed to make some good points. However, ultimately, the PCs are supposed to decide to thwart his scheme. Here, the author demonstrates ignorance of both the perversity of players and the source material of 7th Sea. (Re-read The Three Musketeers. The good guys are not nice guys.)

Fred stuck to his guns, and Keith stubbornly maintained that Malveck was right. Avram's Montaigne swordswoman of peasent origin didn't object to the plan per se, but found the execution a tad unsporting. Josh's Avalonian spy discovered Malveck's new vulnerability and tried to arrest him. At this point, neither of Fred's PCs were going to do anything, as Fred neither wanted them to go after Malveck nor attack the other PCs. So, I handed him Malveck to run. He had a ball, and we made a couple of discoveries.

First, although the author does not say so, whatever Malveck did with the compasses must also prevent the use of Porte magic on the island. Otherwise, the Montaigne nobles could teleport away. A corollary of this is that Malveck cannot use his own Porte magic, nor can any Montaigne sorcerer PCs.

The second thing we discovered is that, even without the use of his sorcery, Malveck can easily elude a large party of beginning PCs. He is not a swordsman, but at least on the apprentice level, swordsmen are weaker than characters whose points go into maxing out skills, knacks, and traits. And Malveck's are quite impressive. He is -not- a beginning character. Scoundrel's Folly is an adventure whose hard points are intended to be completable by parties of all levels, and the author considers Malveck's defeat a hard point. He does not consider Malveck a master villain, merely a petty criminal on the first rung of the ladder of villainy. I think neither the author nor the rest of the folks at AEG realize just how weak starting PCs are. I grant you, Fred played Malveck more intelligently than I would have, but he still eluded four PCs. As a result, the PCs have neither compass, where the author expected them to have both for part three of The Erebus Cross.

That's fine with me, as it opens up the still too rigid plot to numerous possibilities. However, GMs less comfortable with trying to figure out how to use scenarios they paid good money for when players break the script may find themselves in desperate straits. Scoundrel's Folly is an improvement over The Lady's Favor, but the author still needs to work on taking into account the fact that many PCs will not follow the course of events laid out for them. I do not mean that he needs to take every possibility into account; that would not be doable. But in an either-or situation, he must consider what a GM should do if the players stubbornly insist on their PCs doing the opposite of what the author intended.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 3 (Average)

Scoundrel's Folly: The Erebus Cross: Part Two
Author: Scoundrel's Folly by Rob Vaux, Explorer's Society by Jennifer Wick, Additional Material by Ray Yand Category: game Company/Publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group Line: 7th Sea Cost: $11.95 Page count: 64 pages, perfect bound Playtest Review by Lisa Padol on 05/07/00. Genre tags: Fantasy Historical Horror Conspiracy	Scoundrel's Folly: The Erebus Cross: Part Two for 7th Sea by Rob Vaux 64 pages, perfect bound $11.95 reviewed by Lisa Padol Playtesters: Avram Grumer, Fred Herman, Joshua Kronengold, Matt Stevens Grade: C+ The second part of The Erebus Cross adventure is bundled with the second part of the Explorers' Guild material. While I still am still annoyed that both the adventure and the Explorers' Guild material are divided, like Gaul, into three parts, the Explorers' Guild material continues to be good, and the second part of the adventure is better than the first. NOTE: In a move of stunning coolness, AEG released the Compendium for 7th Sea. This is free of charge for anyone owning either the GM's or the Player's Guide for 7th Sea. The Compendium reprints a lot of material on the Explorers' Guild, but not the material found in Scoundrel's Folly. We now return to our regular review. Just like the previous part of The Erebus Cross, the adventure in Scoundrel's Folly is divided into four hard points which the author considers essential to the plot. These are followed by soft points, or optional encounters, which can be inserted or not, as the GM chooses. In the first part, the PCs have one of two magically linked compasses. The second is held by a mysterious villain, and the PCs receive dire visions about what he might do with it. The hook proved good, as I thought it would. Our Heroes went to consult Reginald Coleson, a member of the Explorer's Society whom they had met when I ran part one of the adventure. There, the baron he was staying with had no name, but here, a name was supplied, Stefan Heilgrund. The PCs got Heilgrund to fund their expedition. The material about Heilgrund's castle is well done. There is room for complex intrigue, if the PCs want it. Or, they can simply get the Baron's help and move on. Or, they can get into trouble and be forced to leave the castle in a hurry. There is a refreshing amount of choice here, something lacking from The Lady's Favor, the previous part of The Erebus Cross. Whatever their status on leaving the castle, Our Heroes' next logical step is Freiburg, where they can begin to look for a ship to take them to the island they saw in their vision, whose location should have been discovered at the castle. If the PCs get into too much trouble too quickly, Coleson can put the clues together, although he will not be as friendly as he was. The second part of Scoundrel's Folly has a minor encounter which may not occur. It is not necessary to the plot, but the author clearly wants the PCs to meet a favorite NPC in the Explorer safehouse in Freiburg. However, only PCs who are members of the Explorer's Society are allowed into the safehouse. A perfectly reasonable precaution, but not one of the 8 PCs in the group, including the two who were en route to Montaigne with an army, was a member. Fred had wanted one of his PCs to be a member, but the rules say that a PC can only be a member of one secret society at the start of play, and it made more sense for Keith, Fred's PC, to be a member of the Rilasciare. From my point of view, this is not a problem since the PCs do not have to enter the safehouse with Coleson, but it's something the author needed to take into account. In any case, the PCs probably sail to Caerleon, where they have to convince the notorious Berek to sail them to their destination. Since they know this destination is an island guarded by a Montaigne blockade and since Berek enjoys outsmarting the Montaigne, this should not prove too difficult. Moreover, the adventure is open enough that the author recognizes that the PCs may be on a different ship. There is one false note in the Avalon section. As in the Freiburg section, it involves the Explorers' Society. It appears from the text that non-Explorers can accompany Coleson to the Society's charter house in Carleon. This makes sense, as Carleon is a safer area for them. And a good thing, too, as there is an important link between Scoundrel's Folly and Arrow of Heaven, the third and final part of The Erebus Cross, in the charter house. Coleson sees a picture of a Vodacce ruin with a mosaic depicting the same pattern of symbol as that found on the PCs' compass. Coleson immediately asks for permission to lead an expedition there. Turned down with no explanation, he nevertheless determines to explore on his own. The PCs are not to accompany him, for they must prevent villainy on an island in Montaigne. But what if one or more PCs insist on accompanying Coleson? The GM can't really allow that if she wants to keep all of the PCs active. Scoundrel's Folly does not cover what happens to Coleson, and even if one has Arrow of Heaven on hand, Coleson and his crew are the mcguffin, existing to be found, not to be active participants in the action. Unless they want to re-write the adventure extensively, GMs need to get players to agree that their PCs have no desire to split up to help their friend or to learn the rest of the mystery of the compasses. Fred did not have Keith insist on accompanying Coleson, as I had feared. Instead, for reasons that baffle me and now escape him, Fred decided that Coleson was clearly a spy. I suspect that he was smelling the rat of enforced plots, but was mistaken as to what variety of rat it was. At this point, I added a couple of optional encounters, one of which involves Vesten raiders performing a shamanic ritual. PCs are allowed to witness it, although Vendel heroes should remain on board. A prudent suggestion, but when are PCs ever prudent? There is no clue given about what happens to curious Vendel. I was fortunate that Josh's PC with Vendel/Vesten magic, who was quite curious to see the ritual, was technically Avalonian. The third hard point is the approach to the island. The site of Syrneth ruins and unspecified villainy has a Montaigne blockade around it to protect the privacy of decadent nobles who hunt monsters, as well as beasts maddened from being subjected to teleportation. This was fairly easy for my group: Josh's Avalonian conjured up a storm with Laerdom. Under its cover, a small boat or two slipped passed the Montaigne. The final hard point is the confrontation with Lucius Malveck, the villain of the piece. Safely behind magical wards, which, I presume, also prevent folks from reaching him with Porte magic, Malveck explains that the visions were a mere ruse to get the other compass to the island. He has no dire plan for the world at large; he only plans to hold the decadent Montaigne on the island hostage. Using his compass, he can draw the PCs' compass to him--No Matter What--and when the two compasses touch, any Montaigne inside a building is trapped inside. Meanwhile the protective wards on the island are disabled. The monsters are no longer kept at bay. And, in a lovely touch, neither are the PCs. The wards keeping the PCs from stopping Malveck vanishes the instant he completes his dastardly plan. It is both logical and believable that he would miss spotting the flaw in his plans. However, there is a very real chance that the PCs will not object to his plans. True, they have been used, but, as Fred pointed out, there is no world-threatening evil plan, and his Rilisciare PC, Keith, didn't see what was so wrong with the plan. The nobles wouldn't even be hurt, as they were safe from the monsters and had food and drink to last a while. The author is aware that PCs might be sympathetic towards Malveck, who is allowed to make some good points. However, ultimately, the PCs are supposed to decide to thwart his scheme. Here, the author demonstrates ignorance of both the perversity of players and the source material of 7th Sea. (Re-read The Three Musketeers. The good guys are not nice guys.) Fred stuck to his guns, and Keith stubbornly maintained that Malveck was right. Avram's Montaigne swordswoman of peasent origin didn't object to the plan per se, but found the execution a tad unsporting. Josh's Avalonian spy discovered Malveck's new vulnerability and tried to arrest him. At this point, neither of Fred's PCs were going to do anything, as Fred neither wanted them to go after Malveck nor attack the other PCs. So, I handed him Malveck to run. He had a ball, and we made a couple of discoveries. First, although the author does not say so, whatever Malveck did with the compasses must also prevent the use of Porte magic on the island. Otherwise, the Montaigne nobles could teleport away. A corollary of this is that Malveck cannot use his own Porte magic, nor can any Montaigne sorcerer PCs. The second thing we discovered is that, even without the use of his sorcery, Malveck can easily elude a large party of beginning PCs. He is not a swordsman, but at least on the apprentice level, swordsmen are weaker than characters whose points go into maxing out skills, knacks, and traits. And Malveck's are quite impressive. He is -not- a beginning character. Scoundrel's Folly is an adventure whose hard points are intended to be completable by parties of all levels, and the author considers Malveck's defeat a hard point. He does not consider Malveck a master villain, merely a petty criminal on the first rung of the ladder of villainy. I think neither the author nor the rest of the folks at AEG realize just how weak starting PCs are. I grant you, Fred played Malveck more intelligently than I would have, but he still eluded four PCs. As a result, the PCs have neither compass, where the author expected them to have both for part three of The Erebus Cross. That's fine with me, as it opens up the still too rigid plot to numerous possibilities. However, GMs less comfortable with trying to figure out how to use scenarios they paid good money for when players break the script may find themselves in desperate straits. Scoundrel's Folly is an improvement over The Lady's Favor, but the author still needs to work on taking into account the fact that many PCs will not follow the course of events laid out for them. I do not mean that he needs to take every possibility into account; that would not be doable. But in an either-or situation, he must consider what a GM should do if the players stubbornly insist on their PCs doing the opposite of what the author intended. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 3 (Average)