What Evil Lurks
To date, Necromancer Games has concerned itself chiefly with classic dungeon crawl type adventures. What Evil Lurks seems to deviate from such fare, presenting an adventure that requires a bit of interaction and investigation - as well as a bit of dungeon crawling.
What Evil Lurks is an adventure for 4-6 characters of 8th-10th level.
A First Look
What Evil Lurks is a 48-page, staple-bound softcover book priced at $10.95. This is a fairly typical price for d20 books of this size, many of which are published by White Wolf under the Sword & Sorcery Studios banner.
The cover scheme is similar to most Necromancer Games adventures, with a greenish border. The picture on the front is by Kieran Yanner, and depicts some sort of dark skinned, light haired undead creatures shambling toward the viewer, with a dwelling of some sort in the background.
The interior is black-and-white. Brian LeBlanc is the only credited interior artist. Many of the pieces appear to be charcoal or perhaps soft pencils and work well with the mood of the module. There are also some ink pieces of which I am not as fond.
The cartography is done by Christopher Boll and is excellent. The maps are very detailed and include outdoor and indoor maps, including one perspective map. One map did bother me, though. There is an outdoor encounter map depicting the locations of some ogres. Yet the ogres don't stand out too well at a glance, which may make this map hard to use in play.
A Deeper Look
(Warning: The following section contains spoilers regarding details of the adventure.)
The central villain of the module is a man by the name of Gilean Vel, a wizard specialized in shadow magic and who has transformed his essence to shadowstuff to become a creature of the plane of shadow called a shade. Vel is also the recipient of a family curse. The curse was lifted generations ago when one of his forebears performed a heroic deed; however, the curse has returned due to Vel's roguish lifestyle.
Unfortunately, Gilean Vel is not the direct recipient of the curse: his family is. His wife died in childbirth and his daughter was left a simpleton. Vel's entire motive in this adventure is to remove the curse from his daughter.
Unfortunately for the PCs, his methods are somewhat Faustian. An expert on shadowstuff, Gilean is building an artifact that will burrow a tunnel to the plane of shadow and plunge the world into night. He hopes that by doing this, he can curry the favor of the demon lord Orcus and get him to lift the curse.
Yet that is not all. Gilean has an apprentice named Siebkron who is working with Orcus behind Gilean's back. Siebkron plans to divert the artifact to the negative energy plane, causing massive death instead of massive hysteria.
The artifact, called the soul engine, is powered by the energy of souls. Bodies are incinerated and their spirits become a fuel called essence ingots. Obviously, this will require Gilean's followers to collect victims to power the machine. It is this situation that involves the players in the ongoing plot line.
The sole hook to the adventure is a letter to one of the PCs by a Lothair, an NPC that the PC is assumed to know. The letter requests the PC's presence in Leafton, the town where Lothair lives.
The adventure is split into three acts. The first act details the PCs' time in Leafton. Upon reaching Leafton, the characters can track down Lothair. He explains that his son was abducted, at which point the PCs are expected to investigate. Some investigation turns up that he is not the only one missing. Eventually, it is assumed that the PCs investigate the nearby forest.
The forest has a number of fixed and random encounters. The most curious of these is an encounter with ogres that seem very stealthy. The text rather arbitrarily assigns a high DC to tasks to notice their presence; however, these high DCs are not borne out by the ogres' Hide and Move Silently skills. In fact, they are regular ogres.
The party will at some point come across a pack of dire wolves that the players might assume are responsible for the disappearance. The dire wolves, though, do not attack first. Eventually, a druid will join the dire wolves. The druid is named Daitha and is Gilean Vel's brother. He is currently caring for Gilean's daughter, Katya. Daitha is interested in what his brother is up to and is likely either to join the party or trail them.
Eventually, the party will find a dwelling in the forest occupied by ghouls under the control of three necromancers in Vel's service. If the PCs overcome these foul creatures, they can find a stack of paralyzed but still alive people, including Lothair's son.
In addition to Lothair's son, the party meets a character named Lord Esteban. Esteban is actually some sort of celestial servant of a deity, and is here to aid the PCs. He provides the PCs with his saber, which is actually an artifact called the Quill of Clemency. The Quill of Clemency is indestructible, can use one miracle, and can transform into a variety of different objects. The Quill is the central key to the adventure. Unfortunately, no provisions are made in the book for the players to learn of its powers.
Lord Esteban leaves the party with a fairly cryptic poem that describes the events or potential events surrounding Vel.
In addition to the bodies, the party finds clothes that indicate that the miscreants here worked as part of some surface. It is at this moment that the GM is instructed to remind the players that the PCs heard about a traveling sideshow.
The second act covers the party's efforts to reveal Vel's minions in the circus. The PCs can meet a number of NPCs, only some of whom have anything to do with the kidnapping operation. One NPC may provide the PCs with an encrypted letter, which may require some brain sweat on the players' part, and honestly may be above some players. While the clue is not essential, it gives the players the impetus to check out some of the wagons at the circus. The section gives some guidelines for keeping the players on track.
The third and final act occurs at the factory that serves as the headquarters of Vel and his minions. Essentially, the third part is a dungeon crawl. The section states that Vel has taken precautions in his construction that should keep high-level transportation magic from sneaking in.
The soul engine is housed in a section of the factory that can only be accessed by Vel himself. Yet Vel has prepared a special lock with four components that will allow his underlings access to the secured section of the factory. To get these parts, the PCs must brave several traps. While they are in this section, the PCs may run across an encrypted journal that, if deciphered, reveals that Siebkron is working with Orcus behind Vel's back.
After braving minions, traps, and other encounters, the party should be able to find its way to Gilean Vel and his wayward apprentice Siebkron, who are with the soul engine. Of course, they will reveal that the players are too late. The party has two tasks at this point: dealing with Vel and Siebkron, and dealing with the soul engine.
The former may be quite a task. Vel is a 20th-level character (shadow mage 16 / fighter 4) and Siebkron is a 14th-level wizard. Unless the players picked up on all the right clues, I can just about guarantee that a party of the prescribed levels is doomed.
If the PCs deciphered the journal, they will have enough information to reveal to Vel that Siebkron has turned against him. While this will be enough to get Siebkron to retreat temporarily, this will be insufficient to convince Vel to stop what he is doing unless the PCs also offer a means to cure his daughter.
The Quill of Clemency can cast a miracle and may cure Vel's daughter. This miracle may also be used to stop the soul engine. Yet there is only one miracle. If the players discover enough about the Quill, though, they may learn that the fact it is physically indestructible may be enough to stop the soul engine if thrown into the gears, thus allowing the PCs to meet both objectives.
The short appendix contains two new creatures: the soul nibbler, and the shade template. The soul nibbler is a rat that has been altered by feeding on essence ingots; its bite inflicts negative levels. The shade template grants bonuses to the creature's abilities while in shadows. The shade is pretty much a translation of the shade described in the 1e Monster Manual II, with the exception that unlike the original, this shade is actually strongest in absolute darkness. The original shade was strong in darkness, but was actually strongest when in deep shadows.
Conclusion
This module has a very moody, wonderful feel and a nice underlying premise. After a stream of world-conquering villains in various d20 products, it is nice to see one that has a more complex motivation.
The adventure may be a bit too challenging if your players aren't highly puzzle-oriented. There are many places the adventure can get off-track. Most importantly, it seems that deciphering the Quill of Clemency is almost essential to surviving the adventure. The opposition seems too strong unless the PCs can access the miracle. The single cryptic poem seems like it would not do near enough to unveil the nature of the Quill. The GM may be compelled to tone down the opposition, provide more clues, or both.
-Alan D. Kohler
Go to forum!
(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)