The second book featuring Westbrook by 3am Games, The Master’s Decree provides the game master with several evenings worth of adventurers that are interlinked by their vicinity to the town of Westbrook.
Interior art is handled by Kirk Kugel, Alex McVey, and Charlies Schultz. Most of this takes the form of full-page illustrations between chapters except towards the end where it illustrates the characters of the village. The art does a good job of actually relating to the action in the book and quotes from the text are placed under the illustrations to tie them in. The interior maps are sub par when dealing with larger areas, but are appropriate for dungeon crawling as they have a ‘classic’ look to them. The outer maps just look too 70’s to compete against other companies maps.
The layout is simple two-column format with markers on the edge of the page to indicate what chapter you’re in. In addition, the chapter names are at the top of the page towards the outer border. In terms of editing, it’s a smooth read, but shaper eyes than mine have found numerous little gaming mistakes in the text. Nothing too terrible by the look of John Cooper’s En World review, but enough to be annoying if gaming perfection if your particular cup of poison. Lastly, while the price has gone up slightly since the first book, it still compares well to most other publishers who are at 96 pages for the same cover price.
The book starts off with a recap of Westbrook for those who don’t have the previous book and while it’s only a few pages long, it’s enough to get the players into the game. The players are in essence, hired by the Woodsmen’s Guild to clear out a few kobold lairs. Seems that two tribes, each with their own unique leader, have started to rise in power and prior to a guild of Tradesmen coming in, everything should be peaceful in the neighborhood.
Interestingly enough, the book doesn’t start off with the kobold lairs. Instead, we get an ogre’s lair, a pixie glade, and a spider’s grove. Each of these designed for an hour or two. The first is for four to six third level characters. The second for third or fourth level characters and the last, for fourth-level characters. In looking over the ogre, it seems that as a stand alone encounter, as a standard CR 3 ogre, that he’d be a quick pushover for a group of six characters. Thankfully the author realizes this and provides the option of having a dire wolf companion. Not all of them rely on pure combat skills to save the day. For example, due to their magical power, it’s highly unlikely that the part will be able to overpower the pixie’s.
Each of these adventures is good for getting the party more experience of slightly more treasure. Without play testing the adventure, it looks like the author has taken the side of caution for most of the treasures as there aren’t a lot of potions, scrolls, or gold laying around. This isn’t to say that there is no gold, indeed, diligent players will find gold enough in the ogre’s lair, and there are even some unique items.
Another item of note here, is that the author has included details that may effect characters that are too often reffered to in other adventures, but never written out to save the reader time. For example, penalties for being struck sickened or nauseated. Penalties for moving through small confines. Things like this are useful and time saving for GMs who don’t want to break out the DMG every three minutes.
The kobold lairs, Itlik Igix and Axt Tekti, are very different. Each ruled by a powerful kobold, one through strength, the other through sorcerer, one without numerous traps, one with them, allow the GM to use the same monster in both areas but have a very different feel to the creatures. Ineed, the sorcerer leader of the Tekti has even gone so far as to invent his own fake religion and alter room to continue the myth that his powers are divine and that he is supreme among his people. As portrayed here, the kobolds are perhaps less intelligent than in standard D20 campaigns as they really have no idea of what wealth is.
Depending on the speed and cohesion of the group, and how the GM has the kobolds react to been invaded, the party should move forward without retreat and should be able to finish each lair in say two to three game sessions of approximately four hours each. Some really smooth groups that work well together may even manage to clear out everything in one session and then go back to find anything lost.
Lastly, the party may also search out the ruins of Githil Adlan. These ruins were once the home of the Brotherhood of the Crimson Sash, an order that paid heed to the forces of nature and the elements. This quickly changes gears from kobolds and other mundane foes to elemental creatures and plants warped by magic into fierce defenders.
A few thoughts on the product. It’s interesting and in my opinion good, that the author uses several monsters from third party products like the hunter bush from Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary or the Memory Moss from the Tome of Horrors, among others. I also like how the OGC material is clearly marked with sidebars that say, ‘OGC’.
I like the information on a character’s status as it saves the GM time looking up what game effects are happening to the character. In addition, there are some few new bits of crunch here. Some of these are just interesting bits for handouts like Humhunzan, a +1 warhammer that’s +2 against orcs and has a length history to Inathi Ochelpa, a sword that ‘reveals its power only a bit at a time.’ Here we have a table that shows what abilities the sword has, based on the possessor’s level. This is similar to what was done in Fiery Dragon’s first adventure module and other companies have used something similar but it’s always nice to see a mechanic that works, repeated.
Those looking for a dungeon crawl against a classic foe, and an example of how to switch up gears when using the same foe for more than one encounter, will enjoy The Master’s Decree. Those who want something other than dungeon crawling will not find these adventures to their liking as most of them are in essence, dungeons with the characters deliberately acting as exterminators.
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