RPGPundit Reviews: Blood Moon Rising

This is a review of Blood Moon Rising, written by Peter Spahn; an adventure for Labyrinth Lord (for characters of level 1-3).  It is a review of the print version, a 29 page softcover.   The cover has a nice illustration of some  classical-looking demons, the inside is all black and white with no real art; only several maps (of the area, plus dungeons) and a reproduction of the cover image.

Labyrinth Lord is an old-school clone game, and this adventure is very much an old-school kind of adventure.  It is in the spirit of several "B" series old D&D basic adventures.  It is, in its basic form, a "sandbox with a timeline".  The player characters are meant to be traveling to the little town of Garanton (which could be relatively easily plopped into any regular setting), where there is a sacred festival of sports and games for Fighters, in honour of St. Garan, the patron of the priory near the town.  The town is outlined with its building and inhabitants (the town being quite small, this is no great task), and the player characters are generally free to do what they please.  But from the moment they arrive, events begin to occur around the town that the player characters can address in whatever order they wish.  There is a central plot, involving a portal to a demonic realm that has become active again, and this plotline becomes more dire as time goes by in the chronology.  However, there are a number of little subplots and developments that the PCs can also pursue in different ways: murder most foul, a band of orcs, lusty giant norsewomen, gypsy pickpocket children, and a contest of fighter skills to win a magical prize (but is it worth it?).

One particularly clever element that makes the adventure stand out is the fact that there is a dark secret to the town's history, to the games, and St. Garan.  This is the sort of secret that could be devastating, but is not actually the threat of the current day (just an ancient byproduct).  No, this secret's devastation would be social, not physical, as it reveals that the town's entire history is a lie.   The real twist, in comparison to other module plots, is that it doesn't rely on the cheap stereotypes: the usual suspects you'd think are the secret bad guys are not, or at least not in the way that you'd think.

Its the stuff of sophisticated character-based action, not always the kind of thing you find in a basic-level D&D module, and its damn good.  In fact, Mr. Spahn does a great job with the characters in general; the townspeople, the various heroes who come to attend the games, the monks, the gypsies.  Most of them are not a direct part of the major plot, but are the material of some excellent potential roleplaying hooks for adventurers.

So those elements of the adventure are great: both the plot and the characters.  The only bad elements of the module are that the presentation shows evidence of something of a rush job; or just of lack of attention.   It took me several pages in to get an idea of how the adventure was actually structured, so the introduction was somewhat failing in that regard, the organization means quite a bit of slipping back and forth through the book.  There are occasional typos or rule-typos. For example, most of the mechanics for the various contests of the festival games is fairly good, but in one occasion (an archery contest), the reader is merely instructed to make a "to hit roll", with  no indication of what the AC of the target would be (do we presume it to be 10? 9? are there Labyrinth Lord rules in this that I do not know about?).  On that subject, there are a couple of areas where reference is made to Labyrinth Lord sections; this is obviously to be expected, but the back cover boasts of how the game is "easily converted".  The most egregious issue with this is in one entry where the reader is told that a certain area counts as a "Hoard Class XXI" if you sort through it.  Now, without having labyrinth lord, I don't know if that means the area is supposed to be piled with treasure or scant pickings.

Despite these relatively mild issues, the adventure is one of the best D&D modules I've seen in a long time.  Raggi's adventures are pieces of technical brilliance, but Spahn's Blood Moon Rising is a totally different kind of greatness, its a rich tapestry of setting, in the microcosm of a little fantasy town.  If you're looking for a brilliant puzzlebox, you might want to go for The Grinding Gear, but if you want a grand sandbox for not just action but for flexing your roleplaying muscles, then Blood Moon Rising is a definite win.

RPGPundit

 

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Thanks to this review, I am now intrigued by this module. :hmm:  

I already have way too much D&D/AD&D/retro-clone stuff to ever use in 5 lifetimes, let alone one.  But this one sounds like it offers something different (i.e., is not simply yet another variation on Hommlet or the KotB).

Hey Pundit thanks for the review! I'll never be able to make a technical adventure like Raggi unfortunately. My brain just doesn't work like that (as you can probably tell from the meager dungeon offerings included in BMR). But I'm working on it. I'm planning to send you a copy of my horror themed adventure the Inn of Lost Heroes which is more site based and my next adventure is going to focus heavily on dungeon exploration.

@Akrasia - My goal with BMR was to create an epic-feeling adventure for low level characters instead of the typical dungeon crawl. There are already plenty of well dome "against the humanoids " adventures so I took a stab at something different.  Let me know what you think if you pick it up.

Thanks again Pundit!

Pete