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This adventure review for Night of the Rot Lord is off the old Kalamar Quests adventures for the Kalamar game setting before it was translated to D20. I know that they have updated and consolidated some of these adventures into new products more in line with the d20 game system (read DnD) and setting but it is hard to tell which ones from the product descriptions at the Kenzer & Company Website. Now onto the review.

Production: This adventure is really a combination adventure and source book. The entire book is 18 pages long and that includes the inner covers. The layout is a fairly standard 2-column text layout with no art besides the 2 maps, a heraldic shield, and a short \"Knights of the Dinner Table\" comic strip. The adventure is staple bound and looks to be standard weight 8-½ inch paper folded in half from a “landscape” view.

The maps themselves are quite good in terms of the adventure. There is an overhead view of the village where the adventure takes place. The buildings that may be of interest to the players are labeled with most of the buildings left blank. The scale seems a bit off with the entire village for 200 people, including a temple, inn, village hall, and granary, being in a space of about 250 feet by 200 feet. This is a matter of taste and, truthfully, I didn’t notice the problem until I went back and looked it over carefully for this review. The second map is of a small “cave” complex where Foozle and his minions lay in wait.

Material First I’m going to look at the source material for the adventure, then the adventure itself. I will do the best I can at not giving away spoilers but it is hard to express a reason for my opinions without giving some details. Those who dislike any spoilers should read the adventure review with care or skip it all except for the first sentence.

Source Material Approximately 11 pages of the adventure book is source material. There is one page that describes the village where the adventure takes place including short descriptions of important NPC’s and the remaining 10 pages tell about diseases in Kalamar. How they are contracted, what some of them are, and how they are treated. The village descriptions are what you would expect from an adventure module that is not about a village. It consists of what buildings exist and gives short sentence or two descriptions of who runs them. NPC’s who are likely to play a part in the adventure are given more detail. It is enough material for a DM to have the players make a short trip into the village but not enough to have them live there. It works well with the adventure.

The disease material is also well done. It gives information on how diseases are caught, what temples fight (or produce) them, and how to create diseases. It even takes into consideration Natural Immunity and being a carrier. It then gives examples of multiple diseases. These examples include who normally catches the disease, how they are caught, what they do and how to cure them. The diseases themselves are not terribly imaginative but give good examples of most types of diseases from skin rashes, to plagues, to STDs. In all I think the material is good. It is complete without being too complex to be useful. It takes into consideration different types and stages of diseases and gives good examples of diseases to build off of. By far this is the high point of this adventure. Now onto the low point.

The Adventure itself.

This adventure was bad. Very, Very Bad. The plot was uninspired. Foozle was teased by the village when he was a child. He left met up with some Orcs who taught him to be a powerful Cleric and now he is back to secretly destroy the village by use of a disease. It is up to the characters to figure out who is causing the trouble, where he is, and how to fix it before the village dies or Foozle escapes to work his evil on others. This adventure is one where the GM will have to work very, very hard to convey the information to the players to make the adventure make sense. The entire adventure in the book only takes about 2 pages and it is impossible to complete by players. Not unlikely but impossible. The GM has to step all over the player’s toes to make the encounters work. “You see an Orc in the distance. You rush there and find Monster X but the orc is gone and there is no trail.” If the players don’t have any problems with consistency of plot or railroading then the adventure can work. I recommend just skipping it and using the source material.

Night of the Rot Lord
Night of the Rot Lord Capsule Review by Adam Stein on 13/01/02 Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 2 (Sparse) Summary: I would rate the Style of this product as average. It doesn’t have the flash of many new products today but I don’t need any. Clear layout and readable text are good enough for me. I would have rated it higher except that in a couple areas material is repeated. This is inexcusable on an 18-page product. The Substance I would have to give a “needs improvement”. I want to give it a better score because of the source material but the adventure was so devoid of any positive qualities that I can’t. Product: Night of the Rot Lord Author: Scott Meridith Category: RPG Company/Publisher: Kenzer & Company Line: Kalamar (pre D20) Cost: Page count: 17 Year published: 1999 ISBN: SKU: K&C105 Comp copy?: yes Capsule Review by Adam Stein on 13/01/02 Genre tags: Fantasy	This adventure review for Night of the Rot Lord is off the old Kalamar Quests adventures for the Kalamar game setting before it was translated to D20. I know that they have updated and consolidated some of these adventures into new products more in line with the d20 game system (read DnD) and setting but it is hard to tell which ones from the product descriptions at the Kenzer & Company Website. Now onto the review. Production: This adventure is really a combination adventure and source book. The entire book is 18 pages long and that includes the inner covers. The layout is a fairly standard 2-column text layout with no art besides the 2 maps, a heraldic shield, and a short \"Knights of the Dinner Table\" comic strip. The adventure is staple bound and looks to be standard weight 8-½ inch paper folded in half from a “landscape” view. The maps themselves are quite good in terms of the adventure. There is an overhead view of the village where the adventure takes place. The buildings that may be of interest to the players are labeled with most of the buildings left blank. The scale seems a bit off with the entire village for 200 people, including a temple, inn, village hall, and granary, being in a space of about 250 feet by 200 feet. This is a matter of taste and, truthfully, I didn’t notice the problem until I went back and looked it over carefully for this review. The second map is of a small “cave” complex where Foozle and his minions lay in wait. Material First I’m going to look at the source material for the adventure, then the adventure itself. I will do the best I can at not giving away spoilers but it is hard to express a reason for my opinions without giving some details. Those who dislike any spoilers should read the adventure review with care or skip it all except for the first sentence. Source Material Approximately 11 pages of the adventure book is source material. There is one page that describes the village where the adventure takes place including short descriptions of important NPC’s and the remaining 10 pages tell about diseases in Kalamar. How they are contracted, what some of them are, and how they are treated. The village descriptions are what you would expect from an adventure module that is not about a village. It consists of what buildings exist and gives short sentence or two descriptions of who runs them. NPC’s who are likely to play a part in the adventure are given more detail. It is enough material for a DM to have the players make a short trip into the village but not enough to have them live there. It works well with the adventure. The disease material is also well done. It gives information on how diseases are caught, what temples fight (or produce) them, and how to create diseases. It even takes into consideration Natural Immunity and being a carrier. It then gives examples of multiple diseases. These examples include who normally catches the disease, how they are caught, what they do and how to cure them. The diseases themselves are not terribly imaginative but give good examples of most types of diseases from skin rashes, to plagues, to STDs. In all I think the material is good. It is complete without being too complex to be useful. It takes into consideration different types and stages of diseases and gives good examples of diseases to build off of. By far this is the high point of this adventure. Now onto the low point. The Adventure itself. This adventure was bad. Very, Very Bad. The plot was uninspired. Foozle was teased by the village when he was a child. He left met up with some Orcs who taught him to be a powerful Cleric and now he is back to secretly destroy the village by use of a disease. It is up to the characters to figure out who is causing the trouble, where he is, and how to fix it before the village dies or Foozle escapes to work his evil on others. This adventure is one where the GM will have to work very, very hard to convey the information to the players to make the adventure make sense. The entire adventure in the book only takes about 2 pages and it is impossible to complete by players. Not unlikely but impossible. The GM has to step all over the player’s toes to make the encounters work. “You see an Orc in the distance. You rush there and find Monster X but the orc is gone and there is no trail.” If the players don’t have any problems with consistency of plot or railroading then the adventure can work. I recommend just skipping it and using the source material.