DEAD GOD EXCAVATION
Author: Venger As'Nas Satanis
Publisher: Kort'thalis Publishing
$2.50 on DriveThruRPG

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. Warning: this review is FULL of spoilers.

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.

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

Thanks for the review, hoss!

I never said La Bas Chartreuse was an adventure.  It's clearly not.  It's a location / set-piece.  

Dead God Excavation is a location-based scenario that could be argued is more fragment than true adventure.  There are pieces to either develop oneself or marry to existing OSR bits.  It's deconstructed or perhaps partially put together, so anyone looking for everything fully assembled* and ready to go may feel disappointed... but will hopefully find the journey as rewarding as the eventual destination, after they get over the initial shock.  

But there shouldn't be any shock regarding La Bas Chartreuse because it's clearly labeled "not an adventure nor campaign setting."

VS

* On the other hand, does Dead God Excavation need to be a "story" tagged onto this mini-sandbox in order for it to be an actual fully-formed adventure?  I'll leave that for others to hash out.

VS, we'll chat here so we don't both get banned at NPC.net for...whatever.

La Bas Chartreuse has a setup of the tale, then a chart of encounters for the PCs on their way, then a chart of what happens when they enter the monolith. TO ME, that sounds like an adventure. A set/piece or location would be something that you drop into an adventure or campaign, aka an atypical tavern, a ye olde curio shoppe, etc. It's got all the makings for what should be an interesting adventure, and you hint at its history and surrounding lore.

You are ALMOST there to make both "locations" into kickass adventures. Probably 10 more pages would do it. DGE has the potential to be a great Haunted House / Tomb of Horrors and it could easily launch a cool campaign, especially if you focus more on the excavation aspect and the issues going on in Voss'th Ekk. DGE has untapped potential and I believe fleshing it out more could put it up there with your best work. Or if you really want GMs to tailor DGE, then discuss that in the book and present various options and avenues for their creativity. Present some "what if" options that might spark their imagination and tell them how putting their meat on your bones is the point of DGE, particularly the WHY for the adventurers.

But maybe this location/fragment concept is just something that escapes me. Maybe there's a market for it, like those uncooked pizzas you assemble and heat up at home.

And I know your forum pic, so of course you'd get the Lok-Nar reference. I just wanted to reference a "problematic" movie and see if any of them commented!

Haha, whoever came up with NPC.net... genius!

While criticizing a title (adventure, campaign setting, supplement, etc) for not being longer and more developed is totally valid, I personally think it's a mistake to downgrade something in a review's final grade/score because the reviewer believes that thing would have been better if it had been longer and more developed.  And I'm not just talking about Spinachcat.  A number of reviewers have negatively critiqued my shorter and less developed work over the years.  Hey, I've got 5 kids!

Let me use an example for those who think I'm off my rocker.  I can easily see how a casual reader or reviewer would have preferred Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu" as a novel instead of long short story (some consider it a novella).  And that's perfectly fine, but would it be fair to give The Call of Cthulhu a "B" instead of an "A" just because Lovecraft didn't extend his creation to suit the reviewer's taste?  Maybe it is fair since reviews are usually more subjective than objective.  I'll let you guys decide that for yourselves.  

Having said that, I agree with you (and so, many more agree with both of us) that Dead God Excavation could have been longer and more developed.  And maybe that was a mistake to not lengthen it.  But it is what it is, and I still stand by the fact that what's there is awesome.  And I think most people also agree with that sentiment, as well.

Regarding La Bas Chartreuse, that actually was part of a fully-formed adventure.  However, I let a couple people read the adventure and neither cared for it.  The thing needed a total reworking to the point where I should have started over from scratch.  So, I took out the best bits and published them as a location / fragment.

Does anyone actually think Heavy Metal is problematic?  Wait, what am I saying...? It's unapologetically awesome.  Of course it's problematic for the Ctrl-Left!

VS

Venger, we're gonna agree to disagree and your sales will tell you what direction to move in the future. As I said, I'm not the audience for location/fragments, but maybe there's a real market. The entries in Purple Islands are adventure seeds and that's what you expect/want in a setting book, but FOR ME LBC sits in that uncanny valley between an adventure seed and an adventure. Also, I don't get those $1 PDF for lists of 100 things, but a gazillion of them exist on DriveThru, many with coin rankings so just because I don't get something doesn't mean it won't sell to others.

CoC is a novella TO ME, but I know there's all sorts of English PhDs wanking over where a short story ends and a novella begins. I enjoy novellas far more than the modern 400+ page tome of blather, but I usually skip short story collections so I'm an odd duck.

As for DGE being awesome, I agree it has that POTENTIAL. I ran a Gamma Mars campaign for years (using Gamma World 1e) and I've considered returning to that world repeatedly and DGE would make a great campaign start & arc if I wanted to re-envision the setting through a fantasy / mutant / horror lens.

Also, here's where you can leverage the value of PDF/POD. If you are unhappy with DGE's sales in a year, you can always retool it and make "DGE Revised", give all the buyers the new PDF and entice new ones with the revised version.

There isn't anything stopping you from expanding DGE and LBC. Sleep is for the weak!

Yes, that's true.  I could see myself expanding the crap out of Dead God Excavation in a year or so.  Or if there's demand for a newer/better version of The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence (hardcover, for instance), maybe I could weave that into it...

I can't fault you for finding La Bas Chartreuse less than useful.  There's not a lot there.  It's lacking...

So, at least we mostly agree!  

VS

Islands is awesome. Easily my favorite OSR-era setting. Don't touch it. However, Islands 2:the Return where you expand the setting in new ways and do more cool stuff? That would rock. Worthy of a future Kickstarter.

And its $14 on Amazon. Perfect with everyone's next order of toothpaste, sardines and toilet paper.
https://www.amazon.com/Islands-Purple-Haunted-Putrescence-Venger-Satanis/dp/1500121592

Quote from: Spinachcat;1063084Islands is awesome. Easily my favorite OSR-era setting. Don't touch it. However, Islands 2:the Return where you expand the setting in new ways and do more cool stuff? That would rock. Worthy of a future Kickstarter.

And its $14 on Amazon. Perfect with everyone's next order of toothpaste, sardines and toilet paper.
https://www.amazon.com/Islands-Purple-Haunted-Putrescence-Venger-Satanis/dp/1500121592

I'm touching it... I'm touching it!  [Venger slaps that ass with his slimy purple tentacle]  Fuck yeah.

VS