Review of Dead God Excavation

Reviewer Bias: Venger sent me the PDFs gratis and I am vocal fan of his The Islands of the Purple Haunted Putrescence as its one of my favorite OSR books. If you enjoy gonzo settings, I absolutely recommend it. Also, I've been a Lovecraft fan since forever so I'm the direct target for adventures like the two in Dead God Excavation.

DEAD GOD EXCAVATION

The cover art of Dead God Excavation is Lovecraftian goodness - scribbles, shapes and colors blending into a Rorschach test of horror for the viewer. It's only a monster if you want it to be...and I do. It's also a double adventure. The first is written for Venger's Crimson Dragon Slayer fantasy RPG and the second La Bas Chartreuse is written for his Outer Presence horror RPG. The stats are very rules light and easily converted to whatever RPG you are playing. It's effectively system free.

The adventure begins with a brief background of the area, the Kingdom of Voss'th Ekk which is described in broad strokes and easy enough to be tossed into home campaigns, or replaced with a similar kingdom already in your campaign. Venger uses rumor charts to provide background and reasons why your heroes might journey here, and any GM can flesh them out quickly.

Our heroes see the colossal tomb being excavated from miles away, and of course, get ambushed by bat monkey monsters who eat your eyeballs. At the base of the tomb is our Roleplaying Encounter where our heroes can chitchat with members of various Voss'th Ekk factions and discover their various motivations. The NPCs are pretty cliché - the bored noble, the greedy noble, the two faced scribe, the superstitious peasants, but the chitchat is a good way for the players to learn about Voss'th Ekk without any need for GM's to read a wall of text. Oh, and a sorcerer in black has a Necronomicon knockoff.

Unsurprisingly, the tomb demands blood and darkness before opening its doors and inside, its deeply creepy with a D6 "Wandering Around" chart to keep the heroes on their toes as they explore. Within are alien eggs, a flute playing eldritch thing who plays smooth jazz while our heroes fight off whatever spawns from the eggs, and of course, the giant dead god. There is no map, so "where is what" and "how big is big" are up to the GM. Personally, I'd go TARDIS big.

It's an odd adventure because there is nothing much for your heroes to do, other than sight see around the tomb and try to not get killed. There's some interesting treasure and lots of adventure hooks to build a campaign upon (the dead god may or may not stay dead). The adventure ends with easy rules for clerics attempting exorcisms and a list of "what if" options for continuing the campaign.

Overall, its a hodgepodge of fun cliches that doesn't provide enough fresh meat to justify it as a stand alone adventure. Would I run it? Yes, it's got all my favorite flavors, but I would have to spend a couple hours fleshing it out so our heroes had more to do than just survive. My first instinct would make the PCs members of the Voss'th Ekk factions with conflicting motivations to give them reasons to explore deeper into the obviously evil tomb of evilness. I would also run this in a space fantasy or far future RPG where the opening of the tomb sets the entire campaign in motion.

LA BAS CHARTREUSE

The adventure begins with a giant wall of text, the gibberings of a madman who descended the stairway to Hell and escaped to tell his long winded tale. There's a D6 Encounter Chart for the jungle (all the usual suspects) and oddly, a D4 chart for Surprise that feels out of place. Once you find the monolith, you don't go on an adventure. You go to a D6 chart of bad things that happen to you and then another D6 chart of what flavor of forbidden knowledge did you gain, if any. I repeat: there is no adventure.

What-The-Actual-Fuck Venger!

Would I run this? Not as is. Its anticlimactic which is the worst kind of climax. But if I were to run it, I'd begin the session on Earth and after the PCs get messed up by the monolith, I'd have them appear in Vass'th Ekk and run the Dead God Excavation, aka Visitors from Earth who went to the Strange Place and now need to find their way back (or not). Maybe Den will find the Lok-Nar! Bonus XP if you get that reference.

The adventure ends with a few random charts. You get D20 properties of alien metal which have some cool ideas useful for any genre, but overall, I'm mostly bummed because La Bas Chartreuse sounded so cool. The interior artwork, as always, is greatly evocative and perfect for handouts to players. Venger, please curate a Cthulhu art book in the future because that would rock.

Is it worth buying? It's a $2.50 PDF on DriveThru (aka, half a Frappacino). The artwork alone justifies that, and you will yank out some ideas from Dead God Excavation. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/232344/Dead-God-Excavation