Warning: Spoilers
The Complete Crucible of Freya is a Dungeons & Dragons, 3rd Edition module from Necromancer Games. This module, the first product from Necromancer Games, consists of the following:
W0: The Wizard’s Amulet (18 pages)
8 Pre-generated Player Characters for The Wizard’s Amulet with backgrounds (19 pages)
W1: The Crucible of Freya (48 pages)
The Crucible of Freya Encounter Level Chart and Experience Awards list (2 pages)
4 Player Maps for The Crucible of Freya (4 pages)
W1A: The Crucible of Freya – Supplemental (23 pages)
After you buy The Crucible of Freya and download the rest of the material from the Necromancer Games website, you are looking at a 114 page module for only $7.99, and even more when Necromancer Games puts their Wizard’s Amulet product update on their website. That in itself is a mark of excellence and, at the very least, captures my attention. Upon delving deeper into the texts, it’s obvious to me that this is the best introduction to Dungeons & Dragons ever.
The Complete Crucible of Freya starts with The Wizard’s Amulet. Included are eight Pre-generated Player Characters (PCs) which includes:
Corian, the human sorcerer - the main hero of the story
Galdar, the human cleric of Saint Cuthbert - a man on a mission from his god
Bannor, the human paladin of Muir (one of several deities which one can get as a free download from the Necromancer Games website) – a man on a pilgrimage to the temple of Muir in the city of Bard’s Gate (an upcoming supplement by Necromancer Games)
Blackthorne, the human rogue – a man who needs to get out of town for a while
Belflin, the elf ranger – a loner who senses a kindred spirit in Corian
Helman, the halfling rogue – a thief caught up with wanderlust
Krel, the half-orc barbarian – an ex-slave who knows freedom for the first time in his life
Drebb, the dwarf warrior – an outcast who dreams of glory, fame and redemption
They sounded a lot better to me than eight blocks of statistics and got me thinking about them as heroes right from the start. Including backgrounds for pre-generated PCs was something I was very happy about.
As in all of The Complete Crucible of Freya, the artwork of John Masse is awesome throughout.
The Wizard’s Amulet starts out explaining the events which have led up to the start of the module. While an apprentice, Corian discovered a letter written by a wizard named Eralion. Upon delving deeper, Corian comes to the conclusion that Eralion is dead and that all of his treasure is sealed within his keep which can only be opened by an amulet which Eralion made to allow passage within. The amulet is now in Corian’s possession and so he goes to hire adventurers to join him on his quest. However, little does he know that there is another who knows about the amulet and will stop at nothing to acquire it – and Eralion’s treasure – for himself.
People who have a soft spot for Orcus, the demon prince of the undead will love this and all other Necromancer Games products – Orcus is their mascot and is involved in the story line of The Complete Crucible of Freya as well as all the other Necromancer Games products.
The encounters aren’t typical hack and slash encounters. They are explain well how the encounter starts and what can happen depending on what the players do.
The evil wizard, Vortigern, is a grand take on the villain of D&D and is a great way of telling your players, “Welcome to the party, pal.” The final fight of The Wizard’s Amulet shows a Dungeon Master what he can do to be more than a match for any party if he uses the many ideas given to him.
The Wizard’s Amulet thoughtfully explains how the rules work and when to use them, providing little in the way of difficulty in running the adventure.
The Crucible of Freya contains the village of Fairhill, the surrounding wilderness, and the ruins of Eralion’s Keep. When you start Crucible of Freya, it will be like the adventurers go from being in a dark room to opening the door outside – a whole new world is open before them and the adventurers can do anything they want – and the DM can still keep the game running with all the background, wandering monster encounters, monster lairs, the populace of Fairhill and its surroundings.
The four Monster Lairs given are well described. They also teach adventurers to not explore where they should not be exploring. While they are more than a match for the party, hints are given to the party that something dangerous is about, and if PCs are under the impression that a Dungeon Master only throws encounters at a party that can be easily overcome by combat, then these four encounters teach them a hard but necessary lesson – you can’t hack and slash your way through everything you see - sometimes, you have to use your head. They are also good stops to make after the PCs become powerful enough to handle them.
I was ecstatic to see the Wandering Monster and Rumor tables back in adventure modules with Crucible of Freya. The wandering monster table serves the purpose of showing that if the heroes don’t go to the monsters, then the monsters come to them. It also adds spontaneity to the adventure and is good practice for DMs to learn to expect the unexpected. The rumor table serves the purpose of divulging information (both true and false) to the PCs. It gets them thinking about what’s going on and that adds to the power of the immersion in their roles.
The village of Fairhill has people in it, not just a bunch of stats. Each person is described and has a background. For an example I’ll mention a little about Arlen, the magistrate. In it, his appearance and personality are all laid out and his background mentions that he used to be in the Lyreguard in the city of Bard’s Gate (an upcoming supplement by Necromancer Games). Sounds real cool.
Two new deities are in The Crucible of Freya. Freya, the lesser goddess of love and fertility and Orcus, the demon-lord of the undead. These deities are very cool.
Two new magic items are in The Crucible of Freya – the Crucible of Freya and the Candle of Defiling. Both add mystique to the adventure.
Another classical villain is in this module – Tavik, half-orc priest of Orcus. An awesome picture is included. If Vortigern and company are still alive, they will have teamed up with Tavik. Recurring villains makes a good adventure.
Necromancer Games adds new life to the Common Orc by creating several variants for D&D 3E such as
the Orc Leader,
the Orc Chieftain,
the Orc Sentry,
the Orc Warrior
and the Orc Palisade Guard.
Other monsters are treating in like fashion. Kudos to Bill Webb and Clark Peterson for this.
While I won’t give away the adventure, it is high intense non-stop action that is a must-see.
Supplemental information is included within the module. In it, many good ideas are given on how to get even more out of the module allowing you to tap it for all its creative juices.
In W1A: The Crucible of Freya – Supplemental you get more of everything at the same high level of quality that was in the previous two modules. Included is information on how to scale an adventure both down and up, more rumors for your adventurers that got an ear towards juicy gossip, and more lairs.
Included is Narrah, the Goddess of the Moon and a druid’s grove complete with statistics and descriptions for all of its denizens. There is also a monastery for monks which is treated equally splendid. The monk is expanded upon with rules on how monks go about gaining their abilities and levels.
Another village is covered in the CoF Supplemental – the Village of Crimmor. This makes the adventures less typical and more creative when they’re not all based around a single village.
I especially liked the Ruined Way Station - a gnoll compound which the adventurers will have to pass on their way to the city of Bard’s Gate (an upcoming supplement by Necromancer Games).
Many adventure plots are included such as the one involved Lannet, the Much-Too-Inquisitive Halfling Thief. In it Lannet steals an important gem from a passing merchant. The merchant doesn’t realize he’s been robbed until he’s delivering the package to Duloth – the head of the black market in the city of Bard’s Gate (an upcoming supplement by Necromancer Games). As you can guess, all chaos ensues and the adventurers end up in the middle of it.
The other adventure I’ll mention expands upon the background of Eralion and Shandril, the village priestess of Freya. It starts off after the heroes recovered Eralion’s tomes. Reading Eralion’s Journal tells the heroes about how a young Eralion went to the city of Bard’s Gate (an upcoming supplement by Necromancer Games) to have a magic staff created by Velior, a famous elven craftsman. This kicks off a grand and romantic adventure delving into both love and hate that is remarkably well written.
If you won’t take my word for it, then perhaps you will take Eric Noah’s. The Wizard’s Amulet has received an ENnie nomination and, as of this writing, is the popular choice to take the ENnie. Necromancer Games’ downloads and products also puts them in the position to easily win two more ENnies which they have been nominated for – Best Official Website and Best Publisher. If that’s not a sign of excellence, then I don’t know what is.
To sum up, if you are starting a new D&D campaign, then there is no better way than to use The Complete Crucible of Freya. You will be glad you did.
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