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The three adventures, The Uffington Dragon, Von Gottlieb's Horror and The Last Immortal Man, briefly introduced in the book's Game Index listing, take place in England, the Holy Roman Empire (Germany pretty much) and Cathay (Ming Dynasty China or Greater Mongolia). Each of them are ready for the PCs to wander into; none of them are integrated 'plot points' in The Path of Kane campaign set out in the main The Savage Worlds of Solomon Kane book. They range in length from eight to ten pages, which makes them considerably longer than the adventures in the main book. They are slightly more involved than the main book adventures and include fuller descriptions of the adventure settings, detail several encounters per adventure and even include scope for a bit of investigation. The extra details allow for more elaborate encounters, such as the climax of Von Gottlieb's Horror and a challenging encounter with an ice serpent in The Last Immortal Man. However, the adventures still boil down to the formula of working out who the evil guy is and smiting him. They are very straightforward, and if they involve twists they are not exactly startling.
Each of the adventures takes their inspiration from a real place or from literature. The Uffington Dragon features the Uffington White Horse, Von Gottlieb's Horror is inspired by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and The Last Immortal Man is an elaboration of Coleridge's Kubla Khan. Each however has a fantasy pulp spin. This tying of the adventures to the real world is a very good scheme and I would like to think that Robert E. would approve. The adventures also feature a range of supernatural content, from completely mundane to high fantasy.
The book also includes four pages of sample characters for use as PCs, ranging from an impoverished mouthy gypsy to an arrogant nobleman duellist, all having had chance encounters with Solomon Kane and now mysteriously drawn to wandering and adventure. This is an excellent addition, something that I think should have been in the main book. Even if none of the sample characters appeal as PCs, they can really help inspire ideas for characters. It’s just a pity they have to be included at the back of a book of adventures.
The book itself is a slim 32 pages. It is done in an identical style to the main The Savage World of Solomon Kane book. However, while that style made for a very handsome hardbound book, in a slim paperback it loses much of its impact. The book is modestly illustrated but has some very nice maps. There appear to be a few fairly serious errors in the presentation however. Firstly, The Uffington Dragon is missing an image of the Uffington White Horse (perhaps this could have been put on page four, replacing the rather uninspiring picture there). Also, Pinnacle have made available for download a very useful map (spoilers) of the climactic battleground for Von Gottlieb's Horror. This map was either erroneously not included or was cut for space reasons. Either way it was a mistake as the map should have been included. In The Last Immortal Man, the description of the map of the frozen sea does not correspond to the map in such a way that could cause some real confusion. The description talks of blue squares, whereas the squares on the map are green, which would not be a problem except that the dark blue squares in the description correspond to the light green squares, while the light blue correspond to the dark green. Mixing these up would have the weak ice more liable to break than the breaking ice.
So, overall the adventures are nice, but not impressive. They are a very good addition to the adventures in the main book. However, they don’t break the mould and are simply longer or more fleshed out versions of those in the main book. The sample PCs are a nice inclusion, but certainly not a reason alone to get the book.
