Review of Death's Dark Shadow

Despite Hogshead doing the best they can to reprint previously released material, they have not yet been able to reproduce the entire WFRP back catalogue. A number of books have fallen by the wayside and it remains to be seen whether Hogshead will see fit to reprint them. These "lost" books include The Restless Dead, Lichemaster and Death's Dark Shadow. Fortunately there is still a ready supply of these old supplements available from second hand bookshops.

The book deals with a small town called Kreutzhofen in the southern Empire. This town has the virtue of having direct transport links with the Empire, Bretonnia, Tilea and the Border Princes! The town itself is described in great detail, virtually every building and NPC has a section of dedicated text. With this there are a large number of scenarios, ideas and such like. The centrepiece of these is The Curse of the Reichenbachs, a fifteen page scenario. Finishing off the book are statistics and brief details of several NPCs found in the Warhammer Novels.

I personally am not keen on the general location portrayed in this book, finding it a bit contrived to have a single small town on major trade routes to four separate countries. The trade route to Tilea is via an underground river which runs all the way underneath the Vault mountains! The other trade routes are via mountain passes to Bretonnia and the Border Princes and along the River Soll to the Empire. The underground river to Tilea through Dwarven caverns is hard enough to swallow but the main road to Bretonnia leading directly through the Loren Forest is just as hard to believe. The fact that this forest route was opened up by Marc Oppoleaux (wince) "who was trusted by the Elves more than any other human" is the final straw! The town's location is too remote for my own gameworld but it depends on where the your campaign is based. However, whether you like this aspect of the background or not, there is so much other material here that can easily be converted to alternative settings that the book is still very useful.

The scenarios consist of four mini-adventures, six outlines, three optional locations and the main scenario mentioned previously. The Curse of the Reichenbachs has been written in such a way that it allows you to run any or all of the smaller adventures within it to make a larger campaign out of it. Most of the town locations and NPCs are drawn into the plot in some way as well.

The mini-adventures are straight forward enough, generally in the region of four pages each. Each revolves around one of the town's NPCs and shouldn't take more than an hour or two to play as presented. Without giving too much away, Giscard the pig in "Dangerous Delicacies" is a star and deserves a special mention!

The adventure outlines will require some effort on the GMs part to turn into useful adventures. They generally have a more surreal and bizarre feeling to them than the rest of the book. The "Murder Mystery" is highly contrived and I doubt that many players will solve it thoroughly.

The optional locations are more useful from a general point of view. Introductions have been provided to link them to Kreutzhofen but they can basically be slotted in almost anywhere. They are essentially little more than "dungeon" locations but can come in handy for any restless fighters you have in your group. With a little effort they could be drawn out into longer adventures.

The Curse of the Reichenbachs contains no real surprises, the storyline is fairly stereotypical but should keep your players busy for a couple of nights. It would benefit from having the smaller adventures woven into it to bulk it out a bit and to prevent the plot from being too linear. It makes a good scenario for fairly new characters and players, but those with more experience may find it less of a challenge (although GMs will be able to match it to the players' level fairly easily).

The last section deals with the so-called "Fiction Heroes". This chapter is little more than a series of profiles and skill lists for several characters portrayed in the various Warhammer Novels. A paragraph accompanies each with some (fairly feeble) reasons why they might be in the area of Kreutzhofen. Unless you are desperate for your players to meet Gotrek Gurnisson, Felix Jaeger, Genevieve the Vampire or Johann von Mecklenburg in person then this section is generally best avoided.

Finally, the presentation throughout the book is of a high standard, with lots of useful maps and handouts to accompany the adventures. There are also floorplans for some of the buildings and these may come in handy for almost any inn, watch house, etc.

Overall I would recommend the book. It is stereotypical in places and the location seems contrived but in terms of sheer volume of adventuring scope it can't be beaten. With a little work to expand on the material this book could easily provide months of entertainment, and there's the added bonus that the majority of material can be converted for alternative locations fairly easily.

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)