Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique well-regarded modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited harsh critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath.

In Carmine is a 17 page module for Mothership written, designed and illustrated by S. Murphy, a mysteriously nameless kiwi. In Carmine is a fairly typical set up for a Mothership module: A team of grunts are sent to a deadly planet in the far reaches of space with little to no information. Mothership, to me, is best as a horror scenario (despite many excellent Mothership modules focusing on different things), and so I don’t mind the lack of a novel setup at all.

The art here, while sparse, is great, and fits the humorous bent on body horror that the module leans into. The layout is clear, although the choice of warm browns as the primary palette clashes a little with the map colour choices and the art in a way that isn’t to my taste. In the spirit of Mothership modules, there is nary a white space left on the page and this module even spurns front and back covers, which is a choice that confused me at first, but was an excellent one.

The reason it was an excellent choice, is that the cover instead is a one-sheet on the planet of Carmine. It ends in “But those who know what Carmine truly is would tell you a different story.”, and then as soon as you turn the page it launches into the set up for the module. Now, that set up is far wordier than I like it to be, and a change in the nature of the villain occurs in a few pages that renders some of it unnecessary information. But the unconventional structural choices propelled me forward through the exposition anyway.

Running the adventure has a solidly excellent technique in it that most single-track modules could use. It provides three descriptors: wet, pulsating, falling apart. “If all else fails, stick to these and you’ll be fine“. It’s a genius move, and makes it very easy for the warden to lean into the horror of the scenario without reaching for the thesaurus or relying on the text of the module. More modules could use key universal descriptions like this. The introductory section also has the best appendix N I’ve ever read, mainly because it conjures a very specific atmosphere that I don’t even need to search for me to apply to the module. Again, more modules could apply a creative, evocative appendix N in the same manner to great effect.

The next section is a hex-crawl I’m not so sure about. I love the simple iconic map, and the names are evocative on that first page. It uses polyhedral dice for weather, which departs from Mothership wisdom (it uses them to good effect, but nevertheless); the weather for this strange planet is weird and fantastic though. You have a 1-in-3 chance of a terrain specific encounter, but the direct route to the laboratory means you’re more likely to only visit each terrain twice, reducing your chance of finding the most interesting encounters. I would run this as a point crawl, because there are eight unique encounters and seven hexes, so I might as well generate them ahead of time. Part of my reasoning there is because you’re not exploring, but rather you’re heading directly from the drop off to the lab. The encounters themselves are overwritten but excellent. Most have two paragraphs when they could be one. They’re not excessive, irregardless, I’d just rather they be shorter and punchier, knowing that my taste in brevity and punchiness is higher on the scale than most.

The lab, however, nails it. Generally pretty brief and punch descriptions, using bolding to highlight important points, but not excessively. I question why loot is highlighted here, because it’s something you’d search the text for, and it’s better used to jog your memory that there’s an airlock here and tendrils extend along the roof. The stuff is quite evocative and provoke good responses from me: An elevator “when it’s in motion it grunts like it’s struggling against something” which makes me want to describe the sound of flesh unpeeling around the steel cable and blood oozing through the elevator roof. The maps are simple and effective, although given the exceptional artistic ability apparent, it would be useful to have more detail to improve the fluency at the table. It’s always easier to refer to a visually engaging map when possible.

The final boss is a humorous and sudden twist, with multiple clear ways to defeat it that the players are highly likely to shoot themselves in the foot over, which is exactly how it should be. More foreshadowing and temptation around these consequences would be beneficial, but ending a Mothership module with a philosophical discussion about predestination and free will is something that will be memorable for years, if it does eventuate.

Overall, In Carmine is an absolute banger of a short module. I’d love to run this as a one-shot (although it recommends two sessions). I wouldn’t recommend it to those averse to body horror or to meat and gore-themed visuals, but despite my criticisms, I’m not very mixed in my view on In Carmine: I can’t recommend it highly enough, and it’s (foolishly in my opinion) free, so you don’t have an excuse not to.

August 31st, 2023

Idle Cartulary