Disclaimer I: I have seen in reviews that the content
had "spoiler" ascribed to it. I feel that if you are reading a review,
you invite that upon yourself. If you don't want "spoilers," why would
you read a review of a product you do not own? I will not use the phrase of
"Contains Spoilers" in my reviews, if you want a non-biased review
that doesn't reveal content-look elsewhere.
Disclaimer
II: The majority of this review is opinion; your actual enjoyment of this
product should vary accordingly.
Disclaimer
III: The illustrations appearing in this review are not from this product.
"...
For a century the lands near the Fallow Range glacier fields enjoyed freedom
from Glorack's tyranny. Now Glorack has returned!
The
villagers of Trommel fear that the dread steam dragon has somehow risen from
entombment within the deep ice of the Fallow glacier. Scouts report signs that
a dragon has moved back into the icy watselands... " (from back cover)
WARNING SHOT:
I
think it was a Carnation commercial, "You're gonna love it in an Instant…"
that started this whole thing. Or it must have been a late night grocery run
when the designers at Fantasy Flight Games hit the instant breakfast drink section;
"I've got an idea for a series of books. Like little packets of powder
just adding water, we'll just add adventurers…" Or maybe it was a
reaction to the AEG Adventure Keep "booster" series. An eight-page
adventure folded sideways (for 16 pages, for those who are counting) makes for
a standout presentation, but does it leave a chalky taste in the game master's
adventure?
Well,
what should I expect from 16 half-pages? In a series entitled "Instant
Adventure," I expect an adventure—meaning, a beginning, middle and
an end; pretty simple criteria for any length of adventure. It's easier to write
that then the adventure I'm sure.
I'm
not faulting the idea of these kick-start adventures, but I'm coming to see
a trend with the few of these booklets sitting on my shelf—I want too much
out of these half-page experiments. Of the two I've reviewed for RPG.net (this
review and Daggers at Midnight), I'm left wanting conclusions to the
plot that the mini-mod started.
In
this adventure, Steam Dragon's Revenge, we see more of a place that has
a nice hook to it, a ruined dragon's lair being used to further another race's
plan to "steal" the dragon's treasure. These glazvirg gnomes even
manufacture a steam-punk dragon-construct to accomplish this end.
BEGINNING
Steam Dragon's
Revenge starts with action, per se, but not truly in media res. As
the adventure assumes that the player characters have been hired to rid the
area of the steam dragon, the characters begin at the mouth of the old dragon's
cave complex, and slowly progress from there.
The adventurers
make their way to the "dragon's" main lair, and are led to taking
it on in combat... only to be suckered down into a slave mine.
MIDDLE
The party ends
up enslaved by the glazvirg, ice gnomes, and are pressed into working on retreiving
the dragon's forgotten treasure...
END
Which leads the
characters to take arms against these gnomes to free both themselves and the
previous captors. The party then can rampage they way out, stopping the gnomes
and trying to escape before the ice cave collapses around their ears.
As with Daggers
at Midnight, this adventure lacks solid development in reaching its conclusion.
The cave complex layout becomes the way the plot unfolds, and leaves much to
the gamemaster's imagination. I do think that a certain amount of imagination
is required, it is a fantasy game after all, but with developing the race of
the glazvirg in this module, it would be nice to see what the race's main drive
in getting the dragon's treasure and what sort of lands these ice gnome would
have if the party pursues them to their main cities after the conclusion of
this adventure's plot.
PERSONALITY
After all of this,
I still enjoy the short modules, they're an easy addition to the gaming library
for those one shot games with the kid brother. Steam Dragon's Revenge hints
at a solid beginning to a series of glazvirg-targeted adventures, but it would
have been better to develop a race that was fully presenting in the context
of this adventure.
Go to forum!
(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)