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Kraken’s Loom is the second adventure for Redbrick’s new Shards line of adventures for Fading Suns. It is only available in PDF and is 28 pages. To start off I would just like to say that I am thrilled to see new Fading Suns material and from the three products out so far (A Road So Dark, Church Fiefs, Kraken’s Loom) Redbrick is doing a good job.

“Kraken’s Loom” is a standard adventure. The presentation is nothing spectacular but it looks and feels like a Fading Suns book. There is some recycled art I recognized and possibly some new pieces. Overall it is a good looking PDF for a short adventure.

To summarize the adventure it takes place on Leminkainen, a Hawkwood world on the border of Vuldrok space. The adventure starts off with the PCs being hired by a Hawkwood Baroness to find a lost Duke and his signet ring. The Duke was on a starship that had been attacked by some giant creature, possibly a Void Kraken. Only a few managed to escape but it was believed that the Duke was lost until his personalized blaster showed up at a bizarre. Now the Baroness thinks the Duke might still be alive and needs him because she does not want a Hawkwood she despises to take the Duke’s place.

The adventure is a mix of investigation, suspense and action taking the players around Leminkainen and later to planet Vuldrok (Hargard) to visit the strange Ramakrishna. It finally ends in the Vuldrok city of Elfhome.

The great thing about this adventure is the descriptions if gives of locations and people. They have details that are not found in sourcebooks. My favorite is a description of the Leminkainen party.

Once the characters have had ample time to mix with the other guests, a large gong sounds, and Prince Sapan announces that food is about to be served in the next hall. He then leads his guests through to another equally impressive hall. This one is arranged with rows of long, low tables. Seating is upon large cushions and some of the larger Vuldrok look a little uncomfortable with the arrangements.

Food is served in many bowls, kept warm on hot plates along the centre line of the table. The food is very spicy (reminiscent of Decados or Juandaastas cookery) and of many brightly colored sauces with meat or vegetables.

Unfortunately, the action itself is nothing spectacular. It is cut and dry. You talk to person A that leads you to person B that leads you to person C. A lot of times only one NPC is the center leaving all the characters to talk to the one person. There are not many options for a full party. Also, the adventure pushes you to befriend an NPC guide/pilot name Tervus. Throughout the adventure it says if you have Tervus things go easily, if you don’t things will be incredibly difficult and cost you between 1000-6000 firebirds.

Another strange part is the section on questioning the survivors of the destroyed ship. There are three survivors and some are not easy to find. Once you do find them they have little information to offer and are mostly filler.

The last part of the adventure offers some ideas on how to change up the adventure as well as what can happen after. It also has six pregenerated PCs that seem adequate for the challenges. However, I wish they could have been tied closer to the NPCs and actions giving them more incentive than hired help.

Overall it was a fun read. As an adventure it is a little weak but with some tweaking could be a lot of fun and would be ideal for a party of three of less.

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