tldr; Fun adventure, more engaging than it seems from a re-through. A little unsatisfying, though, due to the lack of pay-off from the more interesting elements.
At a glance:
- System used: Mork Bork
- PCs: Two, equivalent of third-level
- Time to complete: About two hours (But I made an accidental change that made this shorter than it probably should have been.)
One of the main reasons I write these reviews is to explore the gap between what a module is like when reading it and what a module is like when running or playing it. In their review of Prison of the Hated Pretender, the hosts of Fear of a Black Dragon mentioned that when they read through it they sort of thought “That’s it?” But there were more complex interactions to be had through actual play. I similarly read through it and thought it sounded a little simplistic, but given the module’s reputation I thought I’d give it a go. It seemed appropriately Mork Borgy. We found the adventure fun, and the situation does tend to lend itself to more interesting play than the text might suggest.
I ran the more recently published PWYW version, but there is also an older fully free version. The new version is loaded with commentary that explains some design choices and gives advice on running OSR games (though Gus uses the term “location based adventuring”), and has more art. I’m not sure what other differences there may be.
Summary: There’s a tower shaped like a man’s head. Inside is trapped an undead deposed tyrant (the Pretender) and a horde of wraiths. The wraiths can only exist in light. They torment the tyrant by day, but are scarce at night, so he can roam more freely then. If he’s killed, the Pretender rises again every morning. At night the wraiths cloister in a magically lit crypt beneath the tower. The PCs hear a rumor of a sphere of great power in the tower.
Note: I had my guys show up at night and asked them if they wanted to go in right away or wait til morning. They went in right away. I recommend having the PCs arrive at the location during the day. My guess is they’ll go in. Then specifically note the spirits fading in and out of existence when they move from direct light to shadowy corners. That gives them more of a chance to figure out how the tower actually works.
Let’s take a look at it based on my criteria for a good dungeon:
Someone to talk with: In the adventure location itself, as opposed to the village, the Pretender is the only NPC you can talk with, because the wraiths are unable to speak. That’s fine by me for an adventure this size, I don’t need a ton of different NPCs I need to portray at the table. However, it does limit the ways that PCs can learn information about the location.
Something to experiment with: There’s a big weird mechanical sphere on the roof they can mess with (but as noted below, with disappointing results). There’s also a spooky ward made of jade plates guarding the entrance. It’s designed to keep the wraiths and the Pretender inside, and doesn’t really affect the PCs, though they’re sure to look at it and mess with it. There are a few traps to disarm/work around. And of course there’s the tower itself: What time you enter determines how dangerous different parts of the tower are.
Meaningful choices: There are plenty of decisions to be made: What time to enter, whether to enter through the eye or the mouth. Whether to mess with certain things. How to approach the Pretender. Some choices are binary, but they are consequential decisions and they are not arbitrary.
What I liked
- The adventure can be completed with very little combat.
- The Pretender knows enough of the backstory to fill much of it in, if the PCs talk with him.
- Great art.
- Most importantly: It’s fun.
What I didn’t like so much.
- Some stuff is confusing. The text says that the PCs can break the ward and free the Pretender and the spirits by smashing up the jade plates. So why can’t the Pretender throw some stuff at the jade plates to break it himself? In all the years he’s been trapped there it never occurred to him to haul something heavy from the top floor down to the ward? (Fortunately this didn’t come up in play.)
- Similarly, the sphere is the key to the whole scenario. It’s what keeps the spirits animated and brings the Pretender back to life every time he’s killed. If the PCs try to use it, it gives them a vision and then breaks. But somehow it still keeps the spirits animated even after it breaks. And why didn’t the Pretender use it to stop the spirits from animating? The text specifically says he knows how it works.
- Ultimately both the ward and the sphere are letdowns because there’s not much for the PCs to do with them.
- There’s a lot of text. Enough that it makes it hard to use the module at the table. I’d recommend making notes or taking a highlighter to it.
What I changed
One fun change I made: I put a blanket fort in the Pretender’s quarters. He had furniture and fabric and stuff, so why wouldn’t he build himself a dark little space to hide out in?
Another change I would have made: Had the PCs entered during the day time, would have been for some of the spirits to be sitting around, not even bothering to attack them, too bored to bother.
A rather big change I made accidentally: I either misread or misremembered the part where it says the sphere will keep animating the spirits even if the PCs render it inoperable. So I let the PCs basically go into the crypt and loot it with no interference from the spirits. That brought the scenario to an early end. If you follow it as written, the scenario will probably take longer, as it will be much harder to for the PCs to loot the crypt. They’ll need to figure out that it’s better to enter the crypt during the day while the spirits are roaming the rest of the tower, quickly take out the glowing gem, or come up with some other clever plan, or the scenario will likely end in a TPK after a long and grindy combat.