Death Frost Doom is a newly revised edition of a horror adventure. The title very accurately sets the prevailing mood, that's for sure. While written for OSR games such as Lamentations of the Flame Princess, it could easily be used with Dungeons & Dragons (any edition, really) or with your prefered d20/OSR game. With a bit of homework, it could be used with other games as well by tweaking the stat blocks and any of the prompts for saving throws.

It is a 66-page adventure written by James Raggi IV and Zak S. The cover art (in color) was done by Yannick Bouchard and the black and white interior illustrations, cartography and design were done by Jez Gordon. This is a review of the PDF edition.

The writing is conversational and clear. The layout, editing and typography are top-notch, making the text easy on the eyes despite the density of the content. The illustrations are wonderful and eerie: absolutely pitch-perfect for this module. Some of the full-page images slam you like sudden jump cuts in a horror film (the Referee gets an early preview of some of the terror that the players will encounter during the game). The maps are easy to understand and use. Overall an impressively well designed product.

The book begins with two maps: one for an exterior (and a small floorplan) and an interior dungeon map The former is keyed with letter, the latter with numbers (which was a nice idea for added clarity). As already mentioned, these are very well designed and easy to use.

There's a concise table of contents with obvious section headers. While some have titles that are more flavorful than practical, their meaning is clear (eg: "Hell vomits its filth", one of the last chapters before an Appendix of sorts, clearly implies a very messy, grim climax). The headers are each clickable and link to each section. Very nicely done.

We’re given a page of notes about this new edition by the two authors which includes some history of the adventure and insight into minds of its creators. Interesting stuff.

Then there's a page on how the Referee can use this module ("The Approach") which includes a few different possible options on how to get things started. After that, it jumps right into the first encounter with a very memorable NPC.

What I really liked about the structure of this first NPC encounter is that the author gives several options on how to use him (or her). There are roleplaying tips, a random table to dictate what he's doing when the PCs arrive at his home and a full page of "ifs" to cover just about any possible interaction. This approach of handling an NPC is really, really fun and memorable besides being a great method to bring in some ominous foreboding. I'm a huge fan of modules taking a "do-it-yourself" approach. With this sort of tool, one can determine all of the details before or during the game, either randomly or by choice. I like this a lot and I'm very inspired already.

As an aside, the cool thing about this module is the author's inclusion of suggested musical cues. That's a nice touch; I appreciate putting effort into preparing good music for a game session. When I run this, I'll follow this advice as closely as possible.

The first major location is the Graveyard. It is an open-ended and creepy place with all kinds of things that can happen to unsuspecting adventurers. There's a strong hint that bad things once happened there (and are about to happen again). There's lots to find or experience in this awful place: it is a great prelude to what comes next. The Cabin, which is totally an homage to a particular horror movie (three guesses which one), adds even further to the creepiness. There is a lot to find and interact with inside that weird place: players who like to tinker and prod at everything will be rewarded (and/or punished, depending on how you look at it). Really weird and neat encounters here: I would be sad if my players missed some of them. I'd probably include a hapless NPC ally or two as insurance (ie- to trigger some of these cool events if no one else takes the bait). These discoveries are not all negative: there are some beneficial things there too (or at the very worst: benignly WEIRD).

Next we get to the main dungeon, the Shrine, where the proverbial "shit" gets real. This is a very unique dungeon and it's a delight to read, so I'll omit any spoilers.

There are about thirty encounters in the Shrine (but more rooms than that number).

To start off, there's some clear advice on how to run this location: it is not a typical dungeon crawl. First of all, there's a time limit (that is measured in a really awesome and memorable way). A Referee really needs to keep track of this for maximum effectiveness. More on that later.

There are many things to explore and scrutinize here without referring to a character's skills or abilities (except if something triggers a nasty trap or evil supernatural forces). Being careless or reckless will likely spell doom for a PC; being clever and methodical is by far the safer and more interesting way to go about it.

My favorite example of this sort of thing is the Organ. I won't spoil it, but there are some really neat things built into this object. It ties into a feature of many of the other locations to a clever degree; the PCs will have reasons to return to it several times throughout the course of the dungeon. I'll absolutely delight in presenting this device to the players and getting excited trying to anticipate what they'll do. To me, that's a trait of a well-written adventure, right there.

There are so many things to do and objects to experiment with that my mind reels with the possibilities. Admittedly there are a few "gotcha!" moments but they are never dull or straightforward and they always add to the weird horror mood.

Many of the rooms have ominous triggers such as "If the dead have risen" which modify the encounters quite a bit. In essence, the party could go through most of the dungeon, trigger this conditional event and then work their way back through the same rooms very differently. It's a really effective technique.

Some of the key monsters provide fun possibilities for social interaction. None of them, as far as I can tell, are just there only to fight and kill. While interactions with the PCs may indeed lead to battle, this is not a certainty. Again, what a great idea: many undead monsters are not just mindless automatons, after all, but personalities with motivations (usually twisted). Several of these NPCs have had relationships, good or bad, with others of their kind, and if the conditions are right, encounters with them will be greatly affected by the PCs actions.

At last, near the end is the main event: what happens if certain conditions are met and how quickly (depending on that timer mentioned earlier). This is a BIG DEAL, tapping into the third word of the adventure's title (Doom). Potentially, this event could have a huge impact on your campaign whether or not it completely wipes out the party.

There is no happy ending for characters involved with this adventure, really. Even if they do survive, their world will be quite affected. With a bit of tweaking, the Referee could build a really cool post-apocalyptic setting on top of the previous one, though. If I run this with well-liked pre-established character, I may indeed go that route. I'd run it as-is with newly created PCs, though, as a one-shot.

At the end of the book there's a nice retrospective in which the original author (Raggi) talks about the first edition of Death Frost Doom and even includes some of the original artwork and maps.

Lastly there are a few player handouts, which are always nice to include.

Summary

This is an extremely well-written and fascinating adventure, even though it is quite grim and dangerous. Say what you will about the potentially lethal ending or the horrific themes: Death Frost Doom is the antithesis of boring or mundane. This is a very memorable adventure that oozes atmosphere.

I definitely recommend this adventure: even if you never run it (which would be a shame), you will be greatly inspired by the style and game-writing techniques. It is also a really fun read and the artwork is incredible.

Good review of one of my favorite RPG modules.
The new version definitely adds value. I'd read the original but when I gave our GM this new version I resisted looking inside... knowing Zak had changed stuff and given options. There were loads of surprises all the way through and now I'm itching to run it for our DCC group.

Having read this review, I still don't have a clear idea of what this adventure is about.
:confused:

Quote from: Akrasia;818354Having read this review, I still don't have a clear idea of what this adventure is about.
:confused:

Good point. I was trying to avoid spoilers. I guess that I kind of fucked up there.

The PCs, for some reason (there are a few suggested ones), climb up a mountain to a horror dungeon crawl.

That's basically it. But it's really well done.

Quote from: Necrozius;818386Good point. I was trying to avoid spoilers. I guess that I kind of fucked up there.

The 'about' is variable. It's a creepy funhouse full of the remnants of an old (extinct?) cult. A reasonably careful group could probably explore the majority of it and leave without serious conflict... but most groups will NOT be all that careful and will pick things up and mess with stuff.

I got my copy of the new version a couple days ago. I've had the original for a number of years.

Over all, I think the new version is an improvement in almost every way. Which kind of makes me sad, since the original DFD played a very large role in my current campaign.

One of the things I really like about this version is the emphasis on the "Frost" aspect of the title. The original said the dungeon was on a cold mountain covered in snow, but didn't really go farther than that. In this version, the cold is described everywhere, ice is everywhere, things are frosted over and described as freezing to the touch.

I also like how Zak included bits about adding things to Magic User's laboratories using the LotFP rules.

For the person who asked what the adventure is about:
Millennia ago, a powerful death cult controlled this mountain. They performed unspeakable horrors on millions of people over thousands of years. The cult was defeated and destroyed by some good guys a long time ago. The players hear that the dungeon is up there and probably has some good treasure in it, just waiting to be plundered. However, things are never that easy in an RPG, are they?

One of the fun (to me, anyway) aspects of DFD is that it is possible to leave with an enormous amount of loot and never even have a combat. On the other hand, the possibility of a TPK is very high. It all comes down to player choice, which is unlike many more railroady adventure modules. It's also built for low level characters (less than 5th level) which is nice too.

How many sessions does the adventure take?

Can it be broken into useable bits?

I am thinking about how I could run a segment, or segments at a convention using 4 hour or 6 hour slots.

66 pages sounds like a mini-campaign though.

When I ran the original, it took about 8 hours over two sessions. I left out some of the stuff in order to better fit my game world, though. Specifically all of the beginning parts before the graveyard. I kept all the things within the cabin and the shrine, but changed some of the monsters a little bit.

All my players surprisingly lived through it, but from what I hear, that isn't usually the case. So I think it is difficult to judge for time. I would assume a safe bet is two four sessions.

The first time we played it our GM ran it as a one-shot, with no preamble... started us out at the graveyard. We spent nearly the entire session mucking about in the cabin... then, in the last hour, found our way into the temple... the Cleric somehow got himself dead and... The End. We never went back to it *sigh*... I think it was 'too dark' for that group's resident drama-queen (also the GM's buddy-pal, also the Player of the too-quickly dead Cleric).

The second time I played it (new group using revised version) it was inserted into our ongoing campaign. We spent the first session getting there and then visiting the town and the caretaker guy... second session was the graveyard and cabin (found the entrance to the temple right at the end)... third session was exploring the temple, but we ran out the time limit and then... stuff happened.
Only one death and that happened above ground.