Signs & Portents #53

[Hervé]

Two Conan goodies this month:
Temple of Tears, an adventure set in Asgard and Monsters of Legend. Unfortunately, it is not available for download yet (but I guess it will be in a couple of hours). Looks nice...

 

[merkkari-masa]

sounds cool

 

[Krushnak]

monsters of legend is cool. definately gonna spring that bear on my players some time soon seeing as they are heading north.

the adventure wasnt too bad and i got a real beowulf vibe from it. unexplained bestial murders, need for out side heroes to help the village. probably something to play up with the players to throw them off track a bit.

 

[sgstyrsky]

monsters of legend is cool. definately gonna spring that bear on my players some time soon seeing as they are heading north.

The best gaming articles, IMHO, are the ones that make me say, "Why didn't I think of that?"

Monsters of Legend is one of those. A simple but great idea. Interesting monsters, cool abilities, and very much in line with Howard's milieu.

 

[urikson]

the adventure wasnt too bad and i got a real beowulf vibe from it. unexplained bestial murders, need for out side heroes to help the village. probably something to play up with the players to throw them off track a bit.

Hey, thanks for the review This is my first Conan adventure and I would love to hear what other folks think of it... anyone care to contribute his review?

Thanks,
Uri K

 

[kintire]

Hey, thanks for the review This is my first Conan adventure and I would love to hear what other folks think of it... anyone care to contribute his review?

Certainly!

Pros:

-Open adventure with a minimum of railroading. In fact, none at all. A well developed situation instead of a set encounter list.

-Nicely placed shades of grey dilemma. And an obvious villain to fight. Not often I see both of those in one scenario.

- Well developed NPCs with credible motivations.

- Well set up murder plot with interesting twist to it.

Cons:

-Its a Mongoose product, so obviously the map is a bit rubbish . It seems to be a random collection of identically sized huts, and I'm not sure when in the adventure you would use it. I would have preferred a map of the area as a whole.

- The adventure starts out with two well developed hooks, one for locals, one for foreigners. This isn't maintained throughout though. In particular, while the "locals turn on the PCs out of panic" plot is easy to understand with foreigners, I find it a little unconvincing if the PCs are locals.

- There are a few oddities. Ollam Onga is a god of Kush, and the maneuver to get him up north is a little forced. You don't actually need his stats in the adventure, and he isn't especially associated with vampires. I would have used someone a bit more local. Also, you describe Ansuz as a small isolated village and then mention it has 400 families. Given an average family size of 8, that's 3,200 people, plus thralls. That's not a small isolated village, that's a sizable town pushing small city!

Summary: An excellent adventure. The pros are in the most important sections, and the cons are minor quibbles.

 

[Se Chris]

-Its a Mongoose product, so obviously the map is a bit rubbish . It seems to be a random collection of identically sized huts, and I'm not sure when in the adventure you would use it. I would have preferred a map of the area as a whole.

Yeah, that was me rather than Uri. I'm in desperate need of a fast, reliable, cheap cartographer for the magazine and until I find one all the maps are thrown together by me.

So... yeah. It's a problem I'm aware of.

 

[kintire]

Its not so much the map quality. None of the houses were labelled as anything, and none of the action scenes take place in the village. Its not very clear why it was there at all, professional cartography or not.

 

[urikson]

kintire, thanks for the detailed review

 

[Saxon]

I run a Conan Campaign in the Nordheim & Cimmeria. Since I have developed 4-5 Northern-esque D&D campaigns over the years, I have alot of info to pull from when coming up with Conan-style adventures.

Can anyone answer two Questions:

1) How can I find Uri's Aesir adventure?

2) How can I advance my own adventures to other Conan Players?

 

[flatscan]

I run a Conan Campaign in the Nordheim & Cimmeria. Since I have developed 4-5 Northern-esque D&D campaigns over the years, I have alot of info to pull from when coming up with Conan-style adventures.

Can anyone answer two Questions:

1) How can I find Uri's Aesir adventure?

2) How can I advance my own adventures to other Conan Players?

It's in the latest Signs & Portents, isn't it? As to no. 2, you can submit to S&P or do a fanzine. There was talk in another thread about doing a fanzine, I said it there and I'll say it here, I'd be willing to do layout for it if I can get my hands on content.

 

[Saxon]

Thanks for the reply.

As a noob to Mongoose I didn't know about S&P. I downloaded it and saw the piece.

I've heard gamers are divided into Casual, Social, Competitive...but I think I'm more of a binge gamer. When my life allows, I immerse myself in it. I spend alot of time researching and developing a campaign, and run it for 6months to a year...until some life circumstance comes along and takes priority. As a result I have never been part of a community.

This forum-thing is cool though.

 

[The Greek]

Saxon

Since you are a forum newbie I thought I should point out the following:

The Conan index at the top of this forum shows all the previous Conan articles, so you can download the other (free!) S&P issues that have Conan bits. Anything after issue 25 is downloadable. So it is more than just the latest issue...