It is the summer of 1454 and the colonists of the Norse colony, Greenland are disappearing. The cause is unknown, but rumors of monsters and barbarians persist, and it is up to the players to find out the truth.
Greenland Saga is the second historical adventure published by Avalanche Press. Written by the author of
The Last Days of Constantinople, Dr. Mike Bennighof, Ph.D., Greenland Saga shows marked improvement over his freshman effort, but the adventure still shows the weaknesses of d20.
While in the Norwegian port of Bergen, the characters are contacted by the papal spymaster, Monsignor Marcell di San Dimus. Marcell tells the characters that Pope Nicholas V has received a plea for aid from the Christian inhabitants of Greenland. It seems that the Greenlanders have been without a bishop for decades, so the PCs must travel to Greenland to find out not only what is going on but also bring the faith back to the colony. As if this isn’t enough, the PCs also must locate and secure contracts on various luxury items indigenous to Greenland for an Italian trading house.
The bulk of the action takes place in Greenland, and similar to Last Day, game masters are given the choice on how they want the plot to develop. There are three options that a GM can choose from that deal with the cause of the disappearances, and depending on which option is chosen the tone of the adventure can drastically change. The first option is to have monsters responsible for the Greenlanders disappearances. The second option has Portuguese slave traders, working in conjunction with a colonist, responsible for the disappearances of the Greenlanders. The final option has the Greenlanders evacuating the colony peacefully and traveling to a new home in Vineland. With each of these options the GM is given enough information to successfully run the adventure. Also provided is a lot of advice on how to weave these options together to make Greenland Saga an intricate adventure.
Greenland Saga offers a number of well-developed NPCs that have plenty of interesting character hooks. All of these NPCs, if role played correctly, can add much to the adventure; however, they do show the weakness of d20 when dealing with historical adventures. All of the NPCs tend to be Aristocrats and Experts, and their Feat selection tends to be repetitive as well. Granted this is not Bennighof’s fault, but a weakness of d20 on the whole.
There is a wealth of background information provided, and Bennighof does an excellent job of making the period accessible. Though the information is not exhaustive, there is more than enough here for a GM to run the adventure. If a GM wants to base an extended campaign during this period, the information provided is a very good start and I only wish a bibliography was given. There are plenty of facts dealing with the culture and beliefs, but when it comes to the type of Characters that should be played Bennighof comes up short.
Greenland Saga is a historical adventure, and because of this, the typical Dungeons & Dragons classes and races do not fit in. Though Bennighof does mention some character class details, a section should have been included that clearly gives guidance on suitable classes to play. An example of this is found on page 5 where in a small text box advice is given on how to play a Roman Catholic cleric. Another piece of information was found in a text box on page 10 titled Gender and Reality, which almost made me stop reading the adventure. Granted an argument can be made that in medieval Europe women were not as physically strong as men, however the tone of the text was mean spirited and almost rejoiced in this fact.
The art in Greenland Saga is sparse, but the maps are very good, especially the one of Greenland. In addition, the layout is good, but uninspiring. My only real complaint was the placement of NPC information. Each NPC is presented in their own text box that takes up a large portion of the page. Often an NPC would be two or three pages away from where it is mentioned in the text, resulting in a lot of page flipping during play. All of the NPCs should have been put at the end of the adventure in a separate section.
Greenland Saga is written for characters between 2nd and 4th level, and is 48-pages with the last page devoted to the Open Game License. All in all I like Greenland Saga and feel that it is a good adventure. A GM will need to do a lot of work before running this adventure, as it can not be run as is. In addition a GM needs to think about appropriate classes that can be used and their place in society. The adventure is packed with a lot of good information and can easily be mined for ideas for other game systems. Compared to Bennighof’s first adventure, Last Days of Constantinople, Greenland Saga is a marked improvement. Despite the faults this is a very good adventure and well worth a look.
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