Harvest of Thorns
Tribe 8 stand alone adventure
INTRODUCTION
This book is the latest from Dream Pod 9 and is separate from the normal Cycle books, both in terms of the plot (its unrelated to Joshua’s Prophecy and the future of the Nation) and is set pre-Burning. A small notation on the inside cover dates this as an ‘Interlude’ in the Conquest cycle.
It is 64 pages long and is painfully priced at £10 in the UK. For those who care about such matters, the cover is unusual as it has a melange of over-exposed photos instead of the normal drawn stylistic symbols. Its written by Lisa Nichols and Bradley Robbins- both writers who I cannot find credited in previous T8 books.
THE BACKSTORY
(N.B. SPOILER WARNING- I believe GM’s should get the full facts on a product that costs so much money. As such I will discuss the plot fully and name names, so could T8 players do the honourable thing please stop reading.)
Harvest is an adventure with a huge amount of back plot. Essentially the idea is that the powerful and mysterious Guides (whom previous books have revealed to be the inheritors of the ‘Nomads’ knowledge and quest) acquired an uber-powerful Z’Bri heartstone. This heart-stone still retains the consciousness of the Z’Bri Lord T’iphal, a contemporary of Melanis and Tibor. Energised by the Guides constant use of his heartstone, his spirit reaches out to resurrect itself.
T’iphals consciousness reaches out Cthulhu-like to poison the minds of a number of Tribal priestesses against the Guides and implant within them a desire to seize the heartstone for themselves. The three priestesses belong to the tribes of the Fates, and they use Synthesis, skull spirits and corrupt acquaintances to secretly ruin the life of 4 Tribals and have them condemned as Fallen. These 4 Fallen are the ‘bad seeds’ that will bloom in a few years to create the Harvest of thorns for the Tribes.
But, and this is the beginning my primary problem with the book, the Fall of the 4 ‘seeds’ is described in typical T8 fashion through the use of multiple narrative accounts and journal entries. It does a brilliant job of portraying the hopes, motivations, feelings and character of those involved as they are cast out. We learn the tragic love story of a righteous Tera Sheban Judge who became so jealous and suspicious of his beautiful Evan wife that he smothers her to death. Alexei the Yagan, a real mothers boy goes mad with grief and revenge ‘Hamlet’ like after the ghost of his mother returns to tell him that his aunt had her killed for the leadership of the clan. He too fails to see the treachery within his household, or the violence families can inflict on each other. Anna the Evan, chooses to retire the chieftainship of her family but chooses the wrong daughter to succeed her. Ignored and despised by her two wicked daughters, she leaves to find the exiled third daughter, falling along the way and becoming a blind prophetess driven by a false vision to rail against the ‘leadership’ of the Fallen by the Guides whom she see as surrogates for her own corrupt and uncaring daughters. And finally the Romeo and Juliet story of a Magdalite pleasure girl and berserk Joanite warrior, and the betrayal of the innocent whore by her sister, her lover and ultimately her Fatima who casts her out for loving another more than Magdalen Herself. And these, quite fascinating and moving tragic tales form the majority of the back plot of the adventure. But, they also take up a majority of the book, with fully 50 pages devoted to the index, the stories of the NPC’s lives and the priestesses manipulations. This leaves a mere 13 pages to talk about the adventure!
Why might you ask is this a problem?
Isn’t Tribe 8 the game famous for its NPC characterisation and intricate stories? Dont these tales touch archetypal, primal memories in the human experience? Are they as interesting and moving as Shakespeare or Milton?
Well, yes, they are all of those things, and they work exceedingly well as fiction. But- there is no way given to have the PC’s experience all of this rousing story. These things happened to the NPC’s before they ever Fell and came to Hom. Though shaped by these events, the impact of the work is lost because the PC’s see only the end result on the ‘bad seeds’ characters. The Sheban Judge, Anna and Alexei appear merely as fanatics, and Collete the Magdalinite as a little lost girl, desperate for love. Finding out why these NPC’s are like this is quite hard, and its nearly impossible for the GM to convey this background without either handing out the photocopied fiction, or mounting a small theatrical production!
THE ADVENTURE ITSELF
Finally, having introduced the PC’s to the tales of the 4 NPC’s, the adventure in which the PC’s can meaningfully act begins.
Anna’s rhetoric and speaking eventually stirs up some of the more psychotic Fallen to kill some of the Guides apprentices. The majority of the Fallen (who quite like the Guides) then turn on Anna and its the party’s’ duty to save her or mitigate the deaths as Fallen society turns upon its internal dissidents. This is a nice enough little political intrigue, but one that demands the players be negotiators over hackers, and that the GM stretches himself to think about the different factions and NPC’s involved as their reactions are not really described. As for the bad seed Anna, the only way to really get her to recant her anti-Guide rhetoric relies on playing on her back story and finding her missing daughter, but the location, personality and characteristics of the daughter are sparse and require work.
That brings me to a second point. While, in typical T8 fashion the authors don’t want to write a scenario that devolves into mere violence, neither do they give detailed information on what may happen if the party shrug their shoulders and vote to hang the witch (Anna). Sure its bad for Anna, but to be honest, Fallen society isn’t as fragile as portrayed, so the long term effects (as the party may see it) of a lone nut stirring up some militia-mentality yokels to kill a minor member of the elite Synthesis users isn’t that large. Only with hindsight can the players realise that this minor incident foreshadows greater trouble in the near-future. Unfortunately, there really is no useful information to be had from Anna as the evil priestesses used a patented, untraceable ‘Plot device’ to give her the false vision.
Part 2 of the adventure concerns the Judge, Judah. Agents of the priestesses frame the Guide Halos for the crime of murdering a young girl. The case has resonates with Judah given certain similarities and shared history between it and the death of his wife. Like an obsessed cop, he follows the planted bread crumbs to accuse Halos, and so provoke a greater conflict between the pro and anti Guide factions. Once more the PC’s have to diffuse the situation and help their friends the Guides.
Once more the reactions of NPC’s not described in this module (such as Hal Nina, other Doomsayers or Lightbringers etc.) leaving lots of work for the GM.
Part 3 moves up the action as the ‘lost girl’ Magdalite whore is prompted by her Dahlite/Magdalite ‘handler’ to finally seduce another Guide apprentice and steal the Zbri heartstone that has instigated this convoluted plot line. Following the McGuffin and saving the girl from Joanites and re-uniting her with her lover become the order of the day. Unfortunately the stooge ‘handler’ of the priestesses has to get away with the magic stone for part 4 to work and a conclusion brought to this tangled tale.
Part 4 is even more action- orientated as the PC’s must race the Yagan bad seed to his former clans house, where ‘co-incidentally’ his evil aunt is hosting the ritual to free T’iphal. A big fight basically ensues as the PC’s execute summary justice and fight a whole bunch of powerful Tribal s. If they don’t succeed in time, then a ‘demon’ (DP9’s word, not mine) will be reborn in hellish splendour and then........ it trails off. Funnily enough the book runs out of space around the finale, so there are no more moving descriptions, no real implications examined for the events of the PC’s actions.
And this I feel is a great shame. The adventure assumes the PC’s succeed and restore the status quo. But, while the module isn’t as geo-political as the story-driven Cycles which revolve round the fate of the Tribes, there should be some pretty big consequences- if they succeed and kill the conspirators then the PC’s have invaded Tribal land and murdered 3 significant leaders of the 3 powerful Fate tribes- the same sort of action that triggered the Inquisition of ‘Trial by Fire’.
If they get the stone, but don’t kill the conspirators, then nothing has changed as T’iphal can keeping making like Cthulhu for the rest of eternity. And if the PC’s fail, then what happens with an old-school Z’Bri Lord reborn? Is it back to the camps or is the Sangis Baron going to find himself slapped silly and deposed by a Z’Bri with both Sangis and Koleris powers?
All in all, the book could have done with a few more pages of consequences, spin-offs and NPC evolution after the fact. The reason I think that DP9 skimped on it was the ‘interlude’ nature of the book- they don’t want to mess up their precious story timeline. However, given the events of ‘Burning Vimary’ this adventure cannot be easily played after the fall of Vimary. Personally I think it would be ideally placed for the events of ‘Trial By Fire’ or Warrior Reborn.
CONCLUSION
To round up, I’ll return to first principles. Is this a good adventure? Well....,not entirely. Whilst it has a reasonable good plot and pacing, the adventure itself is skimpy and barely detailed, the GM is left to work at too many things (multiple NPC characterisations, describing scenes, letting subtle clues drop and figuring out consequences).
Is it good inspiration for an adventure? The answer is Yes. As an NPC sourcebook and mini-campaign, it is very good, detailing the extensive back history of the major players. I still quibble about the process of getting the good fictional material across through roleplaying, but it could be doable as ‘mini-LARP’ interludes.
What else? Well it doesn’t especially advance the storyline of the game, in fact as the story goes, this is something of a dead-end. It reveals a few more things about the Guides, but nothing on why they are so special that Evan shamans commit infanticide on the babies who may grow up to be Guides. Its the only book that really defines the now common heartstone phenomena and tangentially reveals that regaining Joshua’s Heart may also give Him a chance of Rebirth.
Unfortunately the book costs far too much for its page count and the plot is insufficiently epic for me to say- if you like T8, you’ll love this! Instead I will confine my advice to saying that if you lack long, involved storylines with multiple strong NPC’s and a dizzying back plot, then you will find a use for this.
For people who like games where the PC’s characterisations and actions are always central. then this may not be the product for you.
Style- As the book is well produced, has some cracking fiction, and maintains a consistent theme, a 4 for style.
Substance- Given the concentration on NPC history, the brevity of the adventure outline and the lack of descriptions and consequences, I can only rate this at a 2 as an adventure book. As campaign inspiration it would get a 3.
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