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.

The Dark Tools is a 31 page module for Electric Bastionland, Into the Odd or Cairn, by Joseph Krauss, featuring a search for cursed artifacts in a cursed countryside.

It’s interesting to me the contrast between a well-framed module — one that simply wants the players to be into the action — and a clumsily framed one. The first real page of the module here is a frame, but comes with six short paragraphs explaining the frame. This feels clumsy to me, if only because it could’ve been one short paragraph to explain “County Dessex has a magic item problem. You can talk to Copperwill for more information, but don’t trust him. There’s a hand off for what you find in 7 days.” The length of the chat here gives me strong Dungeon Magazine vibes, but the premise is actually strong, with an untrustworthy source and a solid schedule to work by giving the players a deadline.

This module leans into the schedule heavily, with two competing factions, set times to clear items from the town, and leaning into injury, sleep and overexertion as a limiting factor. This makes it a kind of survival horror module, despite it feeling more like a treasure hunt. One issue I see is that the players don’t know that the 2 factions are actually setting a schedule at all. I think that the stakes could be better set up overall, rather than expect them to figure it out along the way.

The writing here is not beautiful, and not always brief, but works, and uses structure well once you realise it’s there. There are moments of pleasure, though, scattered here and there: “seems as if you’re viewing her through the wrong end of a telescope” It’s also smart about arrangement, fitting most concepts to a page or a spread. And I like what is here a lot, leaning into the faux-modern Electric Bastionland aesthetic really pleasingly, while translating it to a British countryside setting. The connections could be a little more explicit, but overall this little world feels like it should be a pleasure to play in.

The actual map here is a point crawl, which I don’t hate at all, but I feel like using a hex crawl gives a stronger chance of there being cross-country shortcuts causing long delays in a hurry, etc, and in the context of a treasure hunt race, this is preferable to me. The use of the point crawl is intuitive, but unless you’re clearly including impassable hedges in your faux English countryside, allow my players to run into the woods.

The Dark Tools has a strong DIY zine vibe, which is aggressive enough that it feels intentional. But, the clumsy 2 column layout is occasionally justified, with varying font sizes and inconsistent use of bolding and spacing for highlights. The DIY aesthetic doesn’t have to marry with illegibility. The art is well chosen public domain, which suits its strong DIY aesthetic, although it could be used more handily to assist with legibility. The issue is mainly that it’s hard to find your way around. The block text — single column at the outset — buries relevant information so that it’s hard to refer back. Was this already mentioned? Is this implied? Where is this person mentioned? I had trouble reviewing this document because it’s a fairly dense and complex little zine.

Overall, I’m a big fan of the Dark Tools. It nails the Electric Bastionland aesthetic and world, while bringing its own twist, and it is filled with strong characters and compelling descriptions. I think if the author invested more in the work, it’d be a truly praiseworthy module. As it is, though, Dark Tools is probably the first module for Electric Bastionland I’ve seen that I’d actually choose to run, despite it being desperate for editing, unique art, and a keener layout.

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