Dark Awakenings: Guardian is the first in an ambitious series of D20 fantasy adventure modules published by Auran, an Australian company with a goodly amount of courage and vision, for use with
Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition. This module is the first half of a two-part adventure—the second is
Dark Awakenings: Shadowland—and is obviously meant to be used that way. I received this module after my review of
Shadowland appeared here at RPG Net; both the publisher and the distributor offered to send me a copy of
Guardian, and I accepted. As I said in my
Shadowland review, I knew from the get-go that, even if this module turned out to be garbage, this module would attract the attention of folks who care for innovation in gaming products. This is especially so with regard to useful innovation. Fortunately, it’s not complete garbage; it's fun for the thinkers and mystery fans out there, as well as those who need not have a breakneck pace in their adventure gaming.
If you read the Shadowland review and you’re not keen on the technical aspects of the CD-ROM content, then skip down to the play-test notes. Up front I’ll go into that, and the background behind both modules.
Dark Awakenings: Guardian (like Shadowland) is ambitious because it attempts to incorporate audio-visual components to the text and artwork of the module. Auran took seven scenes in the module and made interactive 3D scenes out of them. Except for one, each scene has two options that account for PC decisions. Each scene may be used with either a hex or a grid map overlay. The audio cues may be silenced, but I think that it’s neat enough to leave on for all but very lengthy uses. These scenes are meant to illustrate in detail a few key points in the module’s plot; to that end, I find that they are quite effective. However, the fact that the DM needs to have a computer on hand to make use of this digital enhancement truly detracts from the utility of the rendered scenes. The other thing that did nothing for me was that some of the scenes resembled unfinished stages in a first-person shooter, complete with clipping turned off; it’s aesthetic, and thus a matter of taste, but I prefer that such things be up to the caliber of the better first-person shooters.
That’s not to say that I didn’t appreciate the work. As audio-visual aides, for that is what they are, these scenes do their intended task well. But they’re just bells and whistles and nifty extras don’t sell adventures. What matters is the module’s gaming content, both in presentation and in playability. Fortunately Dark Awakening: Guardian is a respectable product on these aspects, and I am very impressed with the work that went into the world behind these modules. The artwork is pleasing, and the presentation--while not everyone's thing--pleases me.
As I said in my Shadowland review, these modules have a First Age Middle-Earth vibe about them that I usually don’t see in something meant for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition. I still hesitate to choose these instead of the stuff I see out of Necromancer Games or Wizards of the Coast. The reason remains that is the scenario at hand: at first glance, it seems better used for high-powered (even epic-level) characters and not the 3rd-4th level PCs that the front cover calls for. This is not the case, as a reading of the module bears out; Mr. Done didn't create a PC meatgrinder here. That said, it is important (moreso than usual) that the GM familiarize himself with the background and how things are arranged so that the low-level PCs can overcome the challenges set before them. This isn't a module where stupid PCs stand a chance due to the amount of knowledge and investigation skillwork required; Grog Smash equals Total Party Kill. The key point to remember is that the PCs are not supposed to confront the Grimorden (the villain of the series) head-on; they’re supposed to take care of the immediate problems—undead galore and getting the clues to the mystery—and then set off for Shadowland to complete the quest.
About the background information: there’s a lot here, but it’s not hard to digest; it’s a different take on familiar Tolkien-derived themes. Considering the material present, it seems that Auran did a lot of world building prior to publishing both Guardian and Shadowland. If this is part of a long-term strategy to formulate interest in a new D20 fantasy setting, it worked for me; I’d like to see more of the setting behind these two modules. There’s the potential for something on the level of the Scarred Lands, the Kingdoms of Kalamar, the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Rokugan or Theah. I hope to see that potential realized soon. The artwork is also some of the better stuff around.
And now, the play-test notes: spoilers follow below, so be warned.
I used the D&D Iconics for this test: Jozan the Human Cleric, Tordek the Dwarf Fighter, Lidda the Halfling Rogue and Mialee the Elf Wizard. All characters begin with stats and gear for 3rd level characters of their class; this would prove to be interesting, and not in the usual senses (either good or bad). When possible, characters did Take 10 or Take 20.
The default premise worked well enough for my purposes; the PCs sat in a tavern looking for the next job when a cleric from the dominant temple of Theydori (God of Knowledge) approaches the PCs. The priest wants the PCs to go the church’s abbey on the island of Guardian to see to about the ancient Elf ruins there, but the initial pitch offered payment only to Mialee; this went over like a lead balloon. Lidda and Jozan, with some help from Tordek and Mialee, tag-teamed to renegotiate the payment into the maximum offered (800gp; half up front and half upon completion) in the module to be shared by all. Better terms were not possible, so the PCs took the offer. They made arrangements to board the Gray Gull and make for Guardian.
Notes: The payment is pitiful! A 3rd level PC has a default wealth value of 2700 gp, so 200-250 gp isn’t the rich prize that it seems to be. That amount won’t buy a masterwork weapon, most minor magic items or some masterwork armors- all of which are items that PCs of this level need to properly meet the challenges that adventures of that level face. As the scenario is time-sensitive, there is no way to make good (let alone full) use of the advance; there’s just enough time to get a few things at full price (or worse) before the PCs must depart. This bit got fudged for the sake of moving things along.
Prior to this, Lidda had a side-scene involving a shady man named Thran Fynlas; he let Lidda—through a convenient past association (that no one minded as it worked well enough)—of the value of the ancient treasures found in Guardian’s ruins. Thran couldn’t get back to Guardian, but he hired Lidda to do it in return for a cut of the profits; this plan got tossed as soon as Lidda heard the story in the scene described above. (Lidda’s not a stupid rogue.) Once safely out of the harbor, Lidda wisely clued in the others about her meeting with Thran; she explained this a chance encounter with a past associate, and the story as tales out of school told while drunk. Jozan guessed otherwise, but didn’t press it.
Getting there wasn’t quite half the fun, but it wasn’t boring. The trip to Guardian took four days, and nothing happens for the first two; as an option, players (via the PCs) may partake of a Cribbage-like game called “High Seas”. We declined. On the third day, a storm arose and washed an NPC (Galmud) overboard. Mialee used a true strike spell to ensure that the rope thrown to Galmud got to him, and then she let Jozan and Tordek pull him back aboard ship. Galmud thanked the group after the fact by giving them his lucky charm; afterwards, Mialee used a detect magic spell out of curiosity and found a faint aura upon it. Tordek got the item, as the others agreed that he needed all of the luck that he could get; Tordek was not amused.
Notes: There was no need to spend precious space in the manuscript or on the disc with the first two days. The scenes are extraneous and unnecessary. While I appreciate the details provided about the Gray Gull and its crew, but it would be better kept entirely in the appendix at the back of the book and not split between the NPC appendix and the main body of the module. This is one of those nicely done elements of questionable utility; I dig it, but it doesn’t need to be there.
The group made landfall on the fourth day via the ship’s longboat. The PCs went ashore with the rest of the regular supply shipment, secured the cargo and saw off the sailors with good cheer; the PCs witnessed them spearing the seal that appeared alongside the ship’s boat briefly, sighed in disapproval of needless violence (Unusual, I know.) and made their way up the cliff face at the far end of the beach. They find a very pretty, very naked but very wounded woman. Jozan made a Heal check to staunch the bleeding, and then covertly cast a detect evil spell—under the guise of detecting infections or poisons—just to cover their bases. Satisfied that the woman wasn’t a threat, Jozan heals her; she asks the group to return her to the beach. Lidda backed up Jozan’s decision to oblige her by speaking up for him when Tordek questioned him. (Successful Sense Motive checks, both times, sussed out enough to go along with the woman.) The woman, seeing that the PCs were a trustworthy bunch, made her nature known—she’s a Selchie (stats in the back)—and returned to the sea after gifting a magical pearl from amongst those found with her cast-off magical seal skin. The PCs looked on in wonder and then went about their business.
Notes: This got played in a cold, clinical manner due to time constraints. I see that this could be a nice scene for some character development, but not much more; it’s best to keep it short and move things along. Up to this point, which took about a half-hour due to the style employed, it was rather linear. Guardian Island is the adventure site—a dungeon, in figurative terms, because it has all of the features of one—and things are non-linear from here. Programmed events occur on a timetable, so keeping track of game time is very important from here forward.
The PCs took the cargo to the abbey directly, making good time through the use of a Tenser’s floating disk spell to get through the worst parts with ease. The arrival at the abbey tipped the group off, and they went into dungeon crawl mode. They rescued Abbot Olmaren, healed him and secured him in his room. Then they cleared out the corpses, piled them in the cart and hurried to the cemetery to bury them. While Tordek and Jozan took turns digging fast graves, they came upon the marker for Wynsar; Jozan (through a Knowledge (religion) check) recalled the faith, and thereby Wynsar’s role in it, and how the plague event played out here. After consecrating the graves, they went back to the abbey and secured it.
Mialee and Lidda found a second survivor when Jondyn (a drunkard and failed mason) wanders in while walking off a hangover. The women sit him down, Lidda sweat-talks him into cooperating and the loser spills his guts about Guardian. He missed the deaths due to being passed-out-drunk at the time, so all he can say is that they had dealings w/ a ruined elf hall and the artifacts that came from it. That was enough for Mialee, who tore into the accumulated recoveries with a vengeance only to deduce that this was the site of the Grimorden’s prison- and that Lidda’s ruby was one of the parts to its cell.
This took them to the dinner hour. As they ate, they sat around the gathered evidence of supernatural events at work here and pieced together what they knew with what they found. They concluded that Lidda’s contact, found amongst the dead, got involved in unleashing something evil and powerful here; Mialee confirmed this when she finished analyzing the Elvish records on hand. Lidda produced the gem that Thran told her about (she got it earlier in the day), so they knew what value it truly had. From the maps on hand, the group knew where to go and decided that—with hours to go until sunset—to risk a mad dash to the chamber wherein the gem belongs and replace the ruby. That, they hoped, would buy them just enough time to find the rest. It worked, barely, as the group was almost out of spells by then; they replaced the ruby just as the Grimorden awoke. Tordek and Jozan destroyed the corpse found there moments before, preventing its animation.
Notes: This play-test involved people who’ve been at it for decades; newbies wouldn’t twig to things this fast unless they’ve seen far too many zombie films. Questioning the abbot confirmed the suspicions regarding undead involvement, and all of the PCs now wished that Alhandra the paladin had come along. The use of utility spells kept upon scrolls (mount, for example) along with the adherence to time, movement rates and the like actually added to the tension and thus enhanced the enjoyment of the scenario here.
That night, as the Grimorden couldn’t resort to animating the dead and using them to attack the PCs en masse, it seized control of its minion—a Shadow—and bade it to look about to see who these new arrivals were. Seeing a cleric of a sun god (Jozan) and an elf wizard (Mialee) did nothing to put it at ease; it bade the shadow to attack, but it failed in a spectacular manner when Jozan uses his Greater Turning Power against it. The shadow went for Jozan first. He used a torch to defend himself because he had not his mace. He made the turn attempt and declared a swipe of the torch for dramatic effect, with the player unaware of this shadow’s fire vulnerability; the turn check succeeded, and so did the (secret) touch attack roll so the shadow was destroyed instantly. The Grimorden did not know what to do, so it relented until it had more power.
The group hurried the next day to find the next gem, which involved a fight with a zombie underwater for Lidda, and put it into place before noon. By the dinner hour, the group found and encountered the spirit of the priestess Wynsar and the elf lord who first imprisoned the Grimorden: Diamasin. They got the rest of the story filled in from there, bade a brief respite to bring the abbot and Jondyn into its protection and then took up the quest to travel to Shadowland and complete the quest there.
Notes: I apologize for the lengthy blow-by-blow account. I’ll try to shorten things next time. I suspected some metagame thinking near the end, but I forgive it in the interest of getting things done in a timely fashion; play-tests are a lot like convention scenarios in that playing the game is more important than playing the role. In conclusion, I’ve this to say: the audio-visual aides really do complement the written content, and they allow a group to see things in a way that isn’t usually done; the integration is skillfully done and I appreciate the folks at Auran for doing so.
As for the adventure itself, I don’t recommend this as one to play in the convention style. This is best used in a home game where the players have the time to relax, assume their personae and play their roles with passion. It felt like a combination of a horror film, a Brother Cadfael mystery and an episode out of the Silmarillion; I liked that blending of styles, and I appreciate the fact that Guardian is heavy on finding clues and piecing them together. It's a nice chance of pace that makes bards, rogues and others who focus upon knowledge and investigation skills very useful to have. Wise and intelligent action go a long way towards making it easier to solve the problem presented, but the warriors have their day when the villain attempts to slay the PCs via his minions. This is adventure gaming, my fellows, make no mistake; the pace is slower (akin to 19th century scientific romances) than most are accustomed to, and it’s not a scenario where brute force alone will prevail, but it’s still adventure gaming and that’s what a module meant for use with D&D is all about. I dig it, and I recommend it for those looking to experiment with different module formats. For a more conventional type, this is a second choice.
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