“White Robes, Black Hearts, Enigma of the Arcanexus” is the second D20 adventure offering from Dark Portal Games. Their first offering was a free download titled “Dead Fire” which had a few minor mechanical glitches but presented enough new ideas to create an exciting adventure. “White Robes, Black Hearts” does not disappoint. It has some excellent ideas, characters, and a rather involved plot. At a time when most publishers are producing basic “dungeon crawls” this product caters to players with more focus and interest in role-playing alongside their dungeon delves. While the adventure lists itself as being for 3-5 level parties I would stick with the upper part of that range. The length of the adventure forces the creation of a lengthy review so I will give my general comments first and add further analysis of the different chapters at the end.
Do you want this adventure? People glancing at the reviews want this first I suppose, and here I waited until paragraph 2. This adventure has excellent ideas and a deep, involved background for groups that want some good role-playing to go with their dungeon crawling. If you are looking for a pure dungeon crawl or hate random encounter tables, I am afraid you should probably look elsewhere. If you are looking for a reasonable low/mid-level adventure with an epic quest that has real political importance, then I highly recommend this adventure. Although set in the World of Arekoz (available as a free download from the Dark Portal Games-Land of Arekoz website), the adventure provides various ideas for inserting the adventure into other worlds and some ideas for additional side adventures during pursuit of the main objective. I give this product a 4 out of 5 rating, it has some very good ideas, a nice plot, has an easy to follow layout, and fits what I see as its target audience extremely well. There is room for improvement in the editing department, passive voice is over-used, and a few of the encounters could be better balanced but over-all this is an excellent epic-style adventure.
The $7.00 (US) download includes a 104 page .pdf file of the adventure complete with graphics and player handouts, separate .pdf files of the maps, and an additional text file designed for ease of reading on a computer screen. A number of people are turned off by the electronic print format due to lengthy download times and the expensive of printing. I believe the pricing for this adventure is reasonable because, if printed, it would take up a 120-page book and retail for $16-20 (US). The combined download/printing costs are reasonable and this product compares favorably with other print or electronic download D20 products. The additional text file does allow easy reading on a laptop at the gaming table but I still believe many customers will print all or part of the adventure. If printing the entire adventure, I would suggest burning the adventure to a CD and running to a local print shop, they can do it faster and certainly for a reasonable price. For my assessment of the layout and artwork I printed the black and white portions of the module on 24 lb. paper using a Brother HL1440 laser printer and checked printing of both color and black and white pages using an Epson Stylus Color 600. People using different printers, paper, or a print shop, may have varying results. I found the layout easy to follow and the artwork, in my opinion, varied from above average to excellent.
SPOILERS FOLLOW!
Some general spoilers follow. I won’t describe the full detail of the different chapters, the adventure is rather long, but I do provide enough details and information to potentially ruin the adventure for anyone going through it as a player.
The adventure begins with the players being recruited by a resistance movement to find the Arcanexus, a key capable of opening a lost gateway to another plane. The ruling party derives some of their magical powers from another plane, the key might allow the resistance to attack and destroy the source of that power enabling them to eventually win their freedom. The PCs must first talk to several NPCs seeking information about the Arcanexus. This information leads them to a crypt where further clues direct them to an abandoned temple. From there they most travel on to explore a series of caves where they locate the Codex of the Key, a book that discusses a final location, “Ippaeth’s Disgrace” where they finally locate the Arcanexus.
The adventure is written in several chapters that can be run as separate adventures over a long period of time. Advice on making the transition from chapter to chapter, and suggestions for other side quests, help create a cohesive story line.
Chapter 1.
The first chapter is really an information-gathering chapter where Jard Staylan, a captain in the resistance movement, entrusts the PCs with the task of locating the key. Further discussions with Egalmond the Sage, and Aleera Lyrgan are really all that is needed to provide information leading into the next chapter. This chapter provides a number of details on the NPCs the PCs meet and talk to along with hints to help convince the PCs to take on this task. Many details in this chapter are left somewhat open to allow easy modification by the GM for different game worlds or political situations.
Chapter 2.
The second chapter is devoted to the exploration of an abandoned cemetery, catacombs, and the crypt of Rowhan Lyrgan, the goal of their investigations. Within Rohan’s coffin they find a journal that leads them into the next chapter. This portion of the adventure is rather heavy on combat, traps, and undead. A 3rd-level party without a cleric capable of turning undead might have real difficulties here. I would suggest any party hitting this portion of the adventure should average around 4th-level. While some encounters are relatively straightforward a few of the traps and creatures found here can easily kill 3rd-level characters. One of the new creatures found here, the quartz golem, could cause some lower-level parties serious problems. It would be advisable to encourage rest and recuperation during this phase of the adventure. Thorough PCs could come away with a rather high amount of treasure, but other parts of the adventure seem rather treasure poor. Many encounters, and some treasure generation, are left to random tables, which some GMs hate and others love. Keep this in mind as the following chapters also rely on random encounter charts. While I believe that a lengthy adventure such as this requires a certain amount of random tables, some GMs do not like this. If you fall into that category, it is easy enough to choose a few of the encounters and dictate times and places for them to occur.
Chapter 3.
The third chapter involves the investigation of an abandoned monastery and temple. The area surrounding the temple is ‘wild’ and is home to bandits, gnolls, hobgoblins, and other creatures that are somewhat ‘ruled’ by a young blue dragon living within the abandoned temple. The chapter is fairly straightforward and any PCs that have an easy time in chapter 2 should survive chapter 3. If the PCs struggled through chapter 2 they might need a few side adventures to gather more equipment and experience before being run through this chapter. This chapter is actually rather treasure light considering some of the creatures here. The blue dragon’s lair is pretty much the final encounter, and is the location of a map the PCs require to transition into chapter 4. I would have liked some sort of route of negotiation with the blue dragon because their goal is not necessarily at odds with the dragon’s task. Descriptions in the text hint the dragon is over 50 years old putting it in the young adult category but the dragon is listed as ‘young.’ This was undoubtedly done to keep the creature’s CR in line with the desired party level, if I were running the adventure I would probably go ahead and use an older dragon and force the PCs to negotiate for the map they require. Dragons are tough, and the CR values seem more misleading at the lower levels making the encounter with the dragon the most dangerous.
Chapter 4
The PCs find that monks knowing where the Arcanexus was hidden were forced to flee to a series of caverns approximately 50 years ago. The map found in the previous chapter identifies the location of the caves. The PCs must explore the caves, either battling or negotiating with the troglodytes that slaughtered the monks and desecrated their temple. Once the PCs access the desecrated temple, they find enough information to lead them down to a lower set of caves and the hiding place for the Codex of the Key, a book identifying the final hiding place of the Arcanexus. This chapter has the potential to be very combat heavy with encounters ranging from EL4 to EL8. I would suggest a party of 6th-7th level . Most of the treasure appears to be monetary in nature and could possibly use a boost, or a few magic items.
Chapter 5
The Codex of the Key tells the PCs how to summon forth a ziggurat filled with traps created by a mad wizard. The map of the ziggurat is incomplete, with the text hinting it might be completed by a later product. This chapter was rather disappointing, but that might be my own bias against the ‘chess game scenario.’ The PCs are forced to fight and kill a rather difficult creature to open a door, leading into a rather confusing “Plague Room” before heading into the classic ‘PCs become chessmen with opposing doppleganger-type copies.’ I personally do not like such chessman-style traps and games, but I know other people do. The rules for this scenario are balanced enough, but my personal bias would be to remove it entirely and replace it with something else. After passing through the chessboard the PCs arrive at a treasure room guarded by a Bebilith (demon) that allows them to choose a single item of treasure. Amidst the treasure is the Arcanexus. The PCs have the option of fighting the demon and trying to get all of the treasure, but I would guess this would require a party at 8th level or higher. The final encounter is an EL10 ambush after the PCs depart the ziggurat with the Arcanexus. The final ambush should be handled carefully as it is a tough enough battle that an unprepared party could easily be wiped out. The ziggurat could use more detail, but filling it up properly would probably require another full book.
Appendices and More General Comments
The appendices include information on new monsters, NPCs and magic items. They are well organized and illustrated and generally well done. The quartz golem (chapter 2) is sort of a borderline critter in terms of CR value, it has weaknesses to sonic damage but its other strengths would normally make me consider it a CR5 creature. It is presently listed as CR4 but without some hint as to its weaknesses and strengths could provide a rather surprising challenge to a 4th-level party.
I enjoyed some of the puzzles and traps immensely, some people might not. A general suggestion I have for dealing with players that get frustrated is to give them some intelligence or Knowledge checks to help keep game play moving along. I have found this to be useful in a variety of different situations.
In general, I found the adventure a great change of pace from other adventures being published by other companies. I was a little dissappointed in the closing chapter but the rest of the adventure is extremely well done. Dark Portal Games had a few editing and mechanical problems in the publication of their first free module but they have solved most of those problems and present another adventure with an interesting plot line different enough from other products to make it well worth the purchase price.
As a critique, I believe some more editing would have helped the module a great deal. Passive voice (“will”) is over-used and there are a few minor editing errors that are well within the present editing standards (or far better if you consider WoTC as setting the standards). I would have liked guidelines for player levels at the beginning of each of the different chapters. There seems to be quite a leap between chapter 3 and 4 in terms of expected player level.
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