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Warning

This review contains spoilers that in such a short adventure will definitely spoil the game for any Player who reads them.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s look at Spawn of Shupanakha, the latest release for Fantasy Flight Games’ Legend and Lairs line of instant adventures.

For those of you not familiar with the instant adventure line it is essentially a micro module based around a specific map/dungeon. The format is unusual and is the size of a folded map, with the centrefold being the map. At 13 pages, minus the OGL the page count is roughly 6 regular sized 8.5 by 11 pages. As you might expect the writing has to be very tight with little wasted space for the concept to succeed. This can cause problems with flow and did in this particular adventure, but even if you don’t use the adventure set up the map and encounters can often be worth the less than 5 dollar price of the module.

The concept of the adventure is great, but the DM is left to his own devices to make it work. Essentially the players are bushwhacked at an Inn, stripped and taken to a dungeon where they will have to break out before they are sacrificed to an extraplanar horror. A wonderful idea but fraught with difficulties that the writer fails to address but that the DM will have to confront head on... and immediately.

The first encounter has all the bad guys including the head villain jumping the players in their rooms. The combat is fast and well thought out but quite likely to be deadly. There is no real knockout shot in 3E that allow PCs to be taken quietly. Being reduced to 0 HP is the only really way to do this and as the adventure is geared 10th level characters you can’t presume a sleep or charm spell will work as it might on 3-4 level characters. This initial set up as dangerous to the DM as any dungeon the PCs might have encountered. There is a brief attempt at helping the DM plan for different contingencies but it isn’t that helpful.

Likewise when the players are taken to the dungeon, there is no discussion of their state. Sure they are stripped weaponless and the adventure tells the DM how to get from point A to B and so on, but what about the PCs. They have just been taken out by the bad guy, probably at the cost of most or all of their HPS. Now they have to get out without weapons, spells or armour, the adventure should have dealt with this a little better. Sure most of the henchmen are 1-3 level fighters but not all and then there is the outsider at the end. The players could sneak out, and return once they are healed, but it is very unlikely that they would be able to do so and the adventure removes all hope of magical healing by placing the entire area under the bad guy’s magical control. On the other hand the map is nice and the dungeon well planned, with a bit of work the module could have been much, much better.

Spawn of Shurpanaka
Spawn of Shurpanaka Capsule Review by Andrew J Lucas on 08/02/02 Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 3 (Average) If the adventure were twice the size it would have made an excellent 32 page module, as it is it makes a passable but flawed dungeon. Product: Spawn of Shurpanaka Author: Mark L Chance Category: RPG Company/Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games Line: Legends & Lairs instant adventure Cost: 3.95 Page count: 13 Year published: 2001 ISBN: 1-58994-071-7 SKU: DD24 Comp copy?: no Capsule Review by Andrew J Lucas on 08/02/02 Genre tags: Fantasy	Warning This review contains spoilers that in such a short adventure will definitely spoil the game for any Player who reads them. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s look at Spawn of Shupanakha, the latest release for Fantasy Flight Games’ Legend and Lairs line of instant adventures. For those of you not familiar with the instant adventure line it is essentially a micro module based around a specific map/dungeon. The format is unusual and is the size of a folded map, with the centrefold being the map. At 13 pages, minus the OGL the page count is roughly 6 regular sized 8.5 by 11 pages. As you might expect the writing has to be very tight with little wasted space for the concept to succeed. This can cause problems with flow and did in this particular adventure, but even if you don’t use the adventure set up the map and encounters can often be worth the less than 5 dollar price of the module. The concept of the adventure is great, but the DM is left to his own devices to make it work. Essentially the players are bushwhacked at an Inn, stripped and taken to a dungeon where they will have to break out before they are sacrificed to an extraplanar horror. A wonderful idea but fraught with difficulties that the writer fails to address but that the DM will have to confront head on... and immediately. The first encounter has all the bad guys including the head villain jumping the players in their rooms. The combat is fast and well thought out but quite likely to be deadly. There is no real knockout shot in 3E that allow PCs to be taken quietly. Being reduced to 0 HP is the only really way to do this and as the adventure is geared 10th level characters you can’t presume a sleep or charm spell will work as it might on 3-4 level characters. This initial set up as dangerous to the DM as any dungeon the PCs might have encountered. There is a brief attempt at helping the DM plan for different contingencies but it isn’t that helpful. Likewise when the players are taken to the dungeon, there is no discussion of their state. Sure they are stripped weaponless and the adventure tells the DM how to get from point A to B and so on, but what about the PCs. They have just been taken out by the bad guy, probably at the cost of most or all of their HPS. Now they have to get out without weapons, spells or armour, the adventure should have dealt with this a little better. Sure most of the henchmen are 1-3 level fighters but not all and then there is the outsider at the end. The players could sneak out, and return once they are healed, but it is very unlikely that they would be able to do so and the adventure removes all hope of magical healing by placing the entire area under the bad guy’s magical control. On the other hand the map is nice and the dungeon well planned, with a bit of work the module could have been much, much better.

Spawn of Shurpanaka