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

Abbotsmoore is a 25 page system agnostic hexcrawl by Stuart Watkinson, creator of the exceptional but flawed Largshire. Art is by Kiril Tchangov. If you want to see what Largshire looks like when focused in on specific adventuring locations, Abbotsmoore is what you’re in the market for. In it, you search a bog for hidden treasures from the distant past; over it all, a cathedral looms, in which lives an Abbot you have a special interest in. It’s the first part of the Abbot Trilogy, linking to two other modules that crowdfunded simultaneously — Steelhollow and Bitterpeak, by the same team. I will get to reviewing these as well, in time.

The hooks here in the opening all tie directly into the Abbot, limiting the scope of the module to a degree. I like a tight frame, but my primary issue here is that if each player were to roll on this table, they’d all just want something different from the Abbot. What would be more interesting is to put them in conflict with each other: Why not have a player working for the church that want the Abbot removed; or have these requests be at odds with each other. Conflict, ethical or otherwise, is fuel for interesting play.

Watkinson continues to write with a cozy flair: “A pair of compasses that point towards each other.”, “The silence is painful.”, “A terrible wailing can be heard echoing through the passageways. The Abbot is crying.” The writing is just all round lovely, and interesting and for the most part gameable, just like Largshire.

The bulk of Abbotsmoore are 7 small ruins, that litter the bog. These are filled with small puzzles, with clues and many other small relationships interlinking them. These are pretty cool, although I wonder if the linkages will be obvious enough to players. The Cathedral itself focuses on the Abbot as a core character not just in Abbotsmoore but in the trilogy — but here, he largely serves as a quest giver, despite his goals being to do something unclear to an ancient and seemingly evil god. I suspect there is something being held back for the other two modules in the trilogy, but here it’s unclear why exactly the players would ally themselves with someone who seems so suspicious, particularly when he’s very vague about what his gifts will be (they’re all nasty-themed magical items, but for the final gift, a tattoo that allows the Abbot to call for them).

I think to make the Abbot work, you’d either have to prepare your party for working with a villain in your preamble to offering this up, or you’d have to prepare to lay it on thick with his being good — make it saccharine, recast the rat-folk as clearly happy rather than cowed creatures, and make it all round more of a case of deception than the party working for someone who appears soundly evil. As is, without preamble, I think you’d short change the module because they’re going to assume he’s a villain and either scheme against him or outright refuse to interact with him. I think recognising this potentiality in the text would make it stronger, particularly by planting other seeds for the two sister modules and for reasons to seek those items in Abbotsmoore in the case the party are opposed or have killed the Abbot. This could actually be a far more interesting option — the Abbot’s library, or perhaps even communion with the unnamed god itself, could be as compelling as the Abbot himself.

In retrospect, it feels remiss to review this separately from its’ sister modules, as some of my complaints here will likely be satisfied in one or the other of them, and in the context of the larger picture, gaps are a blessing rather than a curse. Abbotsmoore is, however, a lovely module in and of itself — beautifully written, with a fun multiple microdungeon structure, and a striking main character. Watkinson’s writing is a pleasure, and any table would enjoy a few sessions of this.

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