Undiscovered: Quests & Adventures
Issue 3
Well, Eilfin Publishing has
just put out the third issue of Q&A 3 for their Undiscovered:
Quest for Adventure fantasy roleplaying game. This is their
quarterly PDF E-zine, available for $5 from their website (it's
actually distributed through RPGnow, but you can find it more easily
at Eilfin.com). The current issue is 104 pages and adds a lot of new
material for the desert lands described in their Kings of the
Desert adventure.
The cover has a very nice (and
appropriately chosen) pic of a dancing girl done by Jonathon Bowser.
I've seen this picture before, so I know it wasn't commissioned
especially for them, but it is a really nice one. Overall, they've
continued their very high standards as far as presentation and layout
goes. The PDF has all of the nice secondary features, like searchable
text, a table of contents where clicking on a section takes you
there, and a full set of bookmarks for the same areas.
They start off with a short question &
answer section, explaining various rules and answering questions
about the game from their readers. Then they go straight into "The
Oasis of Shar", an adventure in which the PCs are asked to find
out what happened to all of the inhabitants of that small village.
The oasis used to be a regular stop for desert travellers, but now
it's seemingly abandoned. Since the adventure assumes that the PCs
will be in the city of Vad Khara already, this quest fits in well
with the Kings of the Desert adventure. They have one month to
find the original owners, or possession of the whole oasis will
default to the caravan master who first reported it as being
abandoned.
It's a cute little mini-adventure.
While it hasn't got any real red herrings as such, figuring out what
is going on may tax your PCs more than the combats. "The Oasis
of Shar" isn't really suitable for less-than-heroic characters,
who would probably just loot the abandoned homes and call it a
successful adventure. I did like it, though. It's a puzzling
situation that actually has a good, solid rationale for the events
and a number of moral quandries for your players. The closing section
describes a lot of possible outcomes, depending on what the PCs did
and whose side they decided to help (if any).
One note, though: while we have stats
for all of the "mandatory" encounters, 3 of the 5 possible
random encounters involve creatures described in Kings of the
Desert. They do give you stats for them if you want to use them
anyway, but you'd only get the vaguest of descriptions. They'd be
easy to skip, though, as this problem only occurs if you want the PCs
to have a random combat encounter. Overall, a pretty cute
mini-adventure, whose plot I may use in my own game sometime.
"Slather's Secrets", their
ongoing fiction piece about the followers of the deity Slather, has a
few cute twists and has the gods (or at least their avatars) getting
involved directly as the stakes grow higher. It ends with a bit of a
mysery, and even the gods know fear, and while I suspect that I know
where Slather is hiding, I'll have to wait for the next issue to find
out for sure.
They've added the "Dee Twunny"
cartoon, which seems a little odd for a non-D20 magazine, but hey-
it's got a swords & sorcery theme that fits in with
Undiscovered just fine. "The Showcase" gives us two
pics from Jeremy McHugh, who has several published art credits
already. Nice illustrations; it's a pity that we only get two, but
there's a link to his homepage which has several more if you like his
work. Incidentally, this guy also did the cover pic for the previous
issue of the E-Zine.
Next they have an article detailing what is apparently the first
major "organization" in the setting, the Holy Knights of
Kala. These are basically the holy warriors of the goddess of life.
In many ways they're like D&D's Paladins... they strive to be
good and holy, use miracles as well as force of arms and gain several
bonuses (some of them magical) so long as they remain members in good
standing. The basics are all here, so you can have PCs join the
organization or create new ones as current members, though I would
have liked to have seen a writeup of exactly how the knights are
organized and where they are found. It looks like they're planning to
add a lot of similar guilds and orders in future issues.
"Charmed, I'm Sure", gives us another 12 new spells, two
per coven. All of these looked fine to me, although "Slow Time"
(which can double your number of attacks per round among another
effects) seemed like it might be little overpowered before I realized
that it has a really short duration; even at the Master level, it
only lasts 5 rounds. I particularly liked "Adjust Distance",
which probably ought to be called "Shorten Distance" since
it only magnifies the distance you travel with each step and can't be
used to make things become further away. The Coven of Destruction
gets "Fire Ball" which functions a little differently from
the D&D version. The damage done is minimal, but the spell keeps
doing damage as long as you remain inside the area of effect and
the Master level version lasts for 10 rounds (up to 20d4 damage).
This gives your Destruction mages a little extra versatility; this
spell is devestating against slow and clumsy foes but really isn't
much use against fast and agile ones. You'll want to use the new
"Sand Blast" spell against them, instead.
Next we get two pages of info on new
poisons and their antidotes. Not too much here except for new
recipes, and maybe some poisons with effects that we haven't seen
before. "Green-Vision" for example, is made from the
Chacruna plant (found in the Astman jungles) and dulls the victim's
intelligence for weeks.
As in previous issues, we also get
character writeups of two more high priests: Martik Sztorakn, the
dracomensc high priest of Dinar (god of Money and Trade) and the
scantily clad desert duster Terash, high priestess of Duslavine
(patron deity of the dusters). Martik, interestingly, isn't the
money-grubbing merchant king you might expect, but a cripple who
compensated for his lack of mobility by developing a great love of
numbers, math and finances. We also get stats for chakrams, star
blades and tebutje, weapons used by the clans in their area.
Then there are some more useful pieces of setting information,
such as their regular "What's Happening in the World Today"
and a writeup of the background of the Zalif Monastery from Kings
of the Desert. That's followed by some simple guidelines for
running mass combats quickly and easily, by treating each group of
homogenous entities as a single creature whose stats have been
adjusted according to their numbers compared to those of their
enemies.
Then we get a map and some demographic information for the
agricultural town of Am Mudald, where "Coming Full Circle"
(the third and final part of the "Trading Company"
adventure trilogy) is set. I wasn't quite as impressed with this
final part of the adventure, although I did like the early attempts
to throw the PCs off of the trail. There's also a fairly amusing NPC
available whose presence could be used for comic relief. The climax,
however, is liable to be a huge, pitched battle, the sort that just
might require those mass combat rules from earlier. There's also a
plot element involving someone whose mind is being controlled (I
shan't go into any further details than that, lest I spoil the
adventure) that didn't seem to be adequately explained.
Then there's a 15-page piece of game fiction called "The Box
of Sorrows." I rather liked it, although the ending seemed a
little forced. Overall, it was a nice story and I didn't have any
trouble finishing it (unlike a lot of game fiction). The scenario
depicted was a nice one that would make a good adventure, too. I may
steal it sometime. There were some editing problems... little things
like using the wrong punctuation in a bit of dialogue. But overall it
was good.
The final three sections of the E-zine cover the Radiant Tracts, a
desert region surrounded by mountains. In the first part, we get a
geographic map of the region, a discussion of its history, and the
origin of the Kings of the Desert,
immortal mummy-like creatures that periodically manifest themselves
in the wastes and wreak havoc. Then we get stats for various wild
animals that inhabit the region, and finally we get similar writeups
for the monsters that dwell there. The animals aren't anything
special, but it does give you stats for ordinary critters such as
badgers and foxes. Watch out for rabid animals, though; their writeup
of its effects in Undiscovered is about as deadly as the real
thing. I also particularly liked the rather creative kraiff
from the monsters section. These scaly monsters, with a devestating
electrical sting at the end of their tails, are something like a
cross between a dragon and a giant scorpion. Definitely not something
you'd want to encounter. Unlike the other entries, they actually get
an illustration, and it's a very nice full-color pick of an embattled
dwarf caught between two kraiff. Very well done.
Overall, this is another good issue. A definitely bargain for
anyone running an Undiscovered game,
especially if you have any interest in running your party through the
Kings of the Desert adventure.
I give it a 4 for style and a 4
for substance.
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