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. During Zinequest I’m doing some bonus reviews, to give more visibility during this great month of gaming!
Planet Vesta was a 6 page system agnostic setting supplement by Joie Yong, detailing a pair of science fiction worlds. Crowdfunding now for Zine Month is the expanded version, a 14 page version with a whole lot more added content. I’ll be focusing on the expanded version.
I really like the brevity that Yong brings to this. The entire planetary system is described in 1 page, focusing on the unusual: The planets are tidally locked, and everyone lives on a thin strip along the equator where temperatures aren’t too extreme. Play is clearly focused on the biodomes, a network of tunnel-connected habitats, most of which are focused on mining by necessity, but many of which are used for smuggling if they’re away from central inhabitable strip. There are four example domes, clearly describing the Kremmen Dome, Redbank Mushroom Farm, Bandera Commune, and Huayi Research Station geographically speaking. The expansion adds most of these, and more importantly adds some characters
A series of mission prompts comes next, ideas that help you plan a Planet Vesta session. I’d always prefer some specific names and places mentioned in prompt like this — I was called out in a recent Dice Exploder episode for being hard on the “you can never be too specific in a prompt” bandwagon — but they’re all solid mission prompts as they stand. The expansion spends a load of time here too, giving them concrete locations, relates them to specific domes or areas, and expands them and relates them together into a mission tree.
There are two missing pieces here for me, though: Firstly, I want the characters in a border planet like this to be a bit more desperate — this all honestly feels like a Duskvol style setup, but nobody has projects or goals. Whether that’s important depends on wider kind of game we’re going to use this for — that’s the second missing piece. I’m personally starting to prefer non-system agnostic supplements for this reason — if the use case was, say Into the Blind, then this might be more specific in certain ways, but would broadly fit the collaborative playstyle, and the things I feel are missing aren’t a problem at all. If I’m wanting to play Mothership — which is admittedly my default frame for sci-fi roleplaying — this is missing a lot of necessary detail for that to be easy. That said, this is also very obviously a setting that would fit a game like Dialect very well, so your mileage may vary significantly depending on what you want to put this to use for.
I prefer these kinds of supplements to focus on the relationships and characters in a location, and care less about the specific geography and science around them — I’m a hand-waver by nature. Planet Vesta doesn’t hand-wave. If you really like having a solid geographical pinning to a setting, and prefers to bring relationships, characters and politics more independently or collaboratively, Planet Vesta is precisely the supplement for you, and I’d consider backing the campaign.
In 2025 I’m reviewing zungeon zines. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques, just like Bathtub Reviews, but they’ll be a little briefer. The goal here is a little different: I want to spotlight what a craft-based, just-do-it approach to module writing can do.
Tavurchower is a 6 page zungeon for Cairn by Rambling Ink. In it, you are hired to investigate 3 missing buildings that have been replaced by a single, visitor-devouring cottage.
The writing here is funny and evocative. “An Unfortunate Collage of People.”, “Human Eyes: Do Swine Have Souls?”, “A Chaotic Conflagration of wood, stone & brick. A portion of a Tavern Bar looks to have been drunkenly slammed between a Church Nave and a Wizard Tower’s Orrery”. Due to the twisted spatial features of the dungeon, even the empty rooms have points of interest, but most of the rooms have features that make them unique to interact with, “may walk on the walls and ceilings as if they were the floor”, for example. This is a funhouse dungeon, that brings the fun, and keeps you improvising.
This is around 24 rooms, and it keeps those rooms interesting and appropriately looped both on a single level and between levels. The “spatial anomaly” nature of the dungeon is such that it’s hard to predict the shape and patterns of the dungeon, which makes it a puzzle to solve and a dungeon that would be fun to map out if that’s your cup of tea. There are few creators attempting to make spatially interesting dungeons these days, particularly in the rules lite space, so it’s lovely to see that here.
The primary flaw is the lack of factions or characters with competing goals within the dungeon. I feel like there’s actually potential for the squinched and the shadows throughout the dungeon to have their own competing goals, and it would’ve been interesting to see them realised as factions, given they’re by definition multiple people. If I were to run it, I’d probably flesh out a few of these squinched individuals, and I’d also probably come up with some kind of mechanism to determine which of them is in charge. It would added a lot, I think, to an already interesting dungeon.
Tavurchower is a good looking zungeon; it’s (maybe faux) sketched out on graph paper, with red pen for headings, and pasted in body text. Maps and art are gorgeously doodled in biro. It’s damned legible and easy to read; the main problem is that it’s in an unorthodox format (tabloid size), that might be a little hard to use at the table (it’s close enough to A3 that you could still print it outside the US though without trouble).
Tavurchower is a bigger zungeon, and has a tight frame — a job listing, with no other hooks in or out, and no rumours — which I appreciate for a medium sized dungeon, but as it is also more likely to last 4 or more sessions, I think it will serve as more of a centrepiece in your campaign than an excursion; if you’re willing to put a little effort into building up a few characters and motivations, then it’ll do mighty fine as a funhouse dungeon to entertain for a month or two. Even without the added faction play, Tavurchower is going to be a damned fun space to explore, due to its puzzling nature. If that’s what you’re after — a proper crawl, a fun funhouse dungeon that isn’t too punishing, statted out for a modern rules lite game, or if the other zungeons I’ve looked at seemed too small for your table, Tavurchower is precisely the zungeon for you.
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 Curious Creeps in Crimson Creek is a 23 page module for Knave with words, art and layout by Daniel Harila Carlsen. A monster mania descends on Crimson Creek and you’re here to investigate it. what will you find? This was a complementary copy.
Curious Creeps opens with a surprisingly creepy timeline, involving a haunted tower, frankenstein-like bodies made for demon possession, and a crew of hired grave robbers. The random encounters lead mainly into specific locations or plot points, despite their being 20 of them, although the village encounters are less compelling — only half of them point you towards further adventure. The hooks all give the characters specific reasons and ways to involve themselves which will impact their choices, which I love. The rumours, though, are a little less razor sharp — these serve as foreshadowing, but as well as being a fact, right or wrong, I want them to lure the characters into some kind of action when they encounter what is foreshadowed. The list of monster hunters — all characters with ties to the locations or people in them — is exceptional, and many of them hold additional hooks.
The locations are absolutely packed with gameable content — for me, it’s almost too much. But that too much translates to making it impossible for the players not to stumble into interesting things, which is a good thing. There is a huge amount of connectivity between locations, there are so many reasons to find new places from each place you explore. Just banger lines “gilb merchant: Head replaced by a broken gramophone horn, angered if brought up” and powder-kegs all the way through. The dungeon is a six-room affair, with a looping structure, that is far more interested in the experience of exploration rather than of dungeon crawling per se. That said, if you care not about torch counting, it’s as vibrant as the rest of the book.
The inside front cover is a hex map with page references, hooks, and a blurb, random encounters are on page 6 (with their start blocks on the alternate page), and the back cover is rumours. While generally the information design here is clean, accessing these important aspects is a little scrambled — move the random encounters to the back inside spread, put the hooks and rumours together, and the blurb at the back where it’s both expected and where it’s not in proximity to the full summary. This is a really usable text, and it’s disappointing that it doesn’t nail these extra little bit.
Carlen has fully illustrated this module in incredible style, and uses a vibrant salmon as a key colour in both the illustration and text for a really cohesive effect. This eliminates the need for additional font use — for example, read aloud uses this common key colour (occasionally a more vibrant crimson and a contrasting blue), rather than italicised text, and weight is used sparingly, for key words and headings, making for a legible but easy to scan text. The key uses symbols, which take a moment to wrap your head around because they’re not super intuitive iconography — why are monster heads opportunities, and diamonds triggers or consequences? But I like that it differentiates types of information, I just don’t think the iconography makes it work, because I have to flip forward and back constantly, and a simple title or a capital letter would make the keys easier to process, at least for my brain. This isn’t an insignificant problem, because of the complexity of the locations, but it’s a good one to have, as it is only occurring because what’s in the key is super compelling and dense. I really enjoy the art, which walks the line between janky and Fiend Folio inspired with a boldly-inked and polished finish. This is a great example of how a cohesive approach to art and layout can work.
Curious Creeps walks a line between genuinely creepy and funny that reminds me of properties like Over the Garden Wall. To me, that’s a compliment, but it also places this module in the position of being challenging to slot into an existing campaign. This, combined with its intent to be a very open sandbox, means that it might be challenging for it to grip people the way it’s meant to be played — it feels like it’s best as the centre of a short campaign rather than a one-shot. I note from the cover, that’s it’s the first in a series: I hope the series covers adjacent areas in an overworld, because you could get a lot of play time out of a few of these, in a very fun, quirky, and weirdo-filled world.
If you’re looking for an open sandbox, filled with creepily funny encounters and densely packed with gameable moments and social encounters, Curious Creeps in Crimson Creep is a module you should pick up, particularly if that mode suits your current campaign. If you’re willing to drop everything for that vibe, you can pull a hook from the module to gain some immediate direction for your table, and it’ll go damned well I expect. I’m definitely going to be keeping an eye out for what Carlsen does next.
In 2025 I’m reviewing zungeon zines. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques, just like Bathtub Reviews, but they’ll be a little briefer. The goal here is a little different: I want to spotlight what a craft-based, just-do-it approach to module writing can do.
Bloodhoney is a 10 page zungeon for Cairn by Ari-Matti Toivonen. In it, you investigate the ruins of a manor, destroyed after its owner dabbled with demons. Still, people are disappearing in the manor ruins’ surrounds.
We start with an excellent two column timeline, covering what the players and the referee knows. Which is followed by the gimmick of the dungeon — the bloodhoney — which is a drug, initially euphoric, then mutating, then transforming you into the primary antagonistic minion, the thrall, which has some interesting features such as being repelled by salt. The mutations are excellent little examples of growth as detailed by Cairn 2e’s Warden’s Guide. I like starting with the hook and the two-part timeline, it’s really compelling.
The rumours here, are mostly pretty excellent, all but one giving a different action or direction the players will likely take if provided it. I really love when a rumour redirects play — so much thought is given to replayability, but having clever rumours and hooks is the best and least intrusive way to make a module replayable. I’d just skip the low-impact banditry rumour.
The keying of the dungeon is pretty stellar. I love how immediately compelling the basic description of the dungeon is — “All around gurgling, dripping and occasional bangs and metallic knocks can be heard.”, for example. I really like how half of the random encounters are tied to specific locations — an excellent way of ensuring relationships form in a small dungeon. The key itself is a bulleted key, using judicious flagging and 1 level of hierarchy to make details very clear. The character descriptions in particular all are great: “Human-like arms hold a silver vessel of blood. Speaks courteusly with a strained, whining voice.”, “Overarticulates every word. Promises a handsome reward for his rescue, though his family is destitute.”
The only thing lacking in this dungeon is the presence of any puzzle element — this is a dungeon that carries itself on vibes, danger and mystery, And that’s fine, it doesn’t need to aspire to anything more than that. It’s an interconnected, small dungeon, filled with interesting horrors.
The layout and art, as well, is excellent — the best I’ve seen in a zungeon so far. Toivonen is an experienced artist and it shows in the layout and art. Just impeccable choices here. Easy to read and pretty, while being creepy as hell.
As it is, Bloodhoney is a hell of a dungeon, giving you 1 or 2 sessions of compelling horror, and the potential for a dangerous evil to be let loose into the world, as well as the characters be permanently changed. You couldn’t wish for more in a Cairn 2e module. It’s pay what you want; I’d pay for this one, and I wouldn’t hesitate to pick Bloodhoney up now.
The four elements I think are boring are earth, air, fire and water, and the passingly similar five phases known as fire, water, wood, air and metal.
It’s worth noting, though, that there are some more interesting variations. There’s a fifth western element, aether, that is the element stars are made of, although interesting the Ayurveda and Godai also have this element, but here it’s sometimes translated void. The four humours are the biggest departure from typical elements: bile (both yellow and black), blood and phlegm. My point is more that humans, across all cultures, have come up with an astoundingly dull set of common elements. That means there must be some kind of truth to them?
“No, fool, humans are wrong of course.”
The Elves Are Right
“We elves are, as all know, made of starlight, but of course not only starlight! We’d be intangible, don’t be silly. Also Goddess-breath, Sapling-Warmth, and most importantly: The Sharpness of a Blade.”
Visible only as it turns, as light glints off its infinite facets. If bathed in light, you percieve it as an infinite kaleidoscope of blades. 8 HD, AC 17, Attacks: 2 x blades (2d6) or Whirlwind. Whirlwind: All creatures within 10’ must save or take 3d6 damage. This ability can be used once every 1d4 rounds. Immune to Non-Magical Weapons: Only magic weapons or spells can harm it. Shredding Aura: Any creature that hits it with a melee attack takes 1d6 slashing damage from its whirling blades.
“Lol, no.”
The Skraaaaven Are Right
“Oh, yeah, we’re made from this muck” He picks his nose and shoes the green gob to you, “And the like. Useful, it is. Not so much the blood, but snot and bile, yeah?”
The smell of vinegar and fish, precedes this coagulated yellow-and-black humanoid. 4 HD, AC 16, Attacks: 2 x slam 1d6 or Corrosive Spray. Corrosive Spray: Spew a putrid wave bile. If you’re caught in it, save or take 3d6 damage and be begin retching violently for 1d4 rounds. While you’re retching, you have disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws. This ability recharges in 1d4 rounds. Amorphous: The elemental can squeeze through tight spaces like an ooze. Destructive: Non-magical weapons that strike are 50% likely to be weakened by 1 die size. They break when reduced below 1d4.
“Eww, yuk. Of course not —”
The Halflings Are Right
“There aren’t too many halfling philosophers, we’re far to busy for that kind of thing. Oh, I suppose we’re made of hearty laughter, good meals and…pipe smoke? Ha ha ha you’re so silly”
First you smell spice, and wood. Then, your vision, is a little obscured. And then you see its’ eyes: The faint red glow of a pipe-bowl. 6 HD, AC 16, Attacks: Smothering Cloud. Smothering Cloud: All creatures within 20′ must save or take 2d4 damage and be unable to act for 1d4 rounds. This ability can be used once every 1d4 rounds. Insubstantial: Non-magical weapons pass through it harmlessly. Wind Vulnerability: A strong wind disperses the elemental for 1d6 rounds.
“Skssss don’t be absssssurd, smoke? Ha!”
The Ghouls Are Right
“Crrrrrk. Doooo ayyyye look like I’m maade of fiiiire t’you? Naaaaah. Just flesssh, electricity and formaaaldehyde”.
Choking reek of antiseptic. Imagine if a ghoul was swollen to twice the size, after being submerged in some kind of thick, gelatinous fluid, which it oozed from its’ pores. 8 HD, AC 16, Attacks: 2 x toxic slam (1d6) or Preserving Fume. Preserving fume: Release a cloud of toxic vapors. All in the room must save or their eyes burn and lungs seize, causing paralysis for 1d4 rounds. This ability recharges in 1d4 rounds. Embalming Touch: Any creature reduced to 0 HP by the elemental is instantly preserved, its body stiff and unrotting, immune to decay and Raise Dead spells. Highly Flammable: Fire attacks deal double damage, and if it dies by fire, there is a 50% chance it will explode causing 5d6 damage in a 15′ radius.
“What? Ah! No. Disgusting, unnatural things.”
The Orcs Are Right
“Ha ha ha! No, for us Orcs there is no hope for mercy or justice or order, the rich juices of red meat wine, the love of brotherhood, and the mad exultation of battle.”
Just the biggest, happiest, drunkest orc you’ve ever seen, but he has 4 arms, each wielding a laughing axe. 9 HD, AC 17, Attacks: 4 x Mad Swings (1d6), or Rapturous Aura. Rapturous Aura: All creatures in sight of the elemental must save or be forced to attack the nearest creature (friend or foe) for 1d4 rounds if an enemy, or gain +2 to attack or damage for 1d6 if an ally. Battle-blooded: When it reduces any foe to 0 HP, it gains 1d6 HP.
Note: The astute among you may notice that my orc is just quotes from Conan. Thanks, Robert E Howard.
My point: Elements aren’t boring, when they’re subjective. If you’re stuck for a Blog Bandwagon this weekend, please, make a few subjective cultural elementals, and link back to me.
Idle Cartulary
P.S. This is my contribution to the February Blog Bandwagon. Prismatic Wasteland will eventually round them all up, and I’ll link that here.
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. During Zinequest I’m doing some bonus reviews, to give more visibility during this great month of gaming!
Absolute Wurst is a trifold pamphlet module for Frontier Scum by Two Snakes Games. It it, you are tasked with find and report back on the state of a mining prospect town that was lost to deep snow during winter. It’s funding now!
This is a tiny social sandbox, with a decent dose of body horror (content warning: cannibalism, tempered with very dark humour), where you’re dropped straight into the grasp of a cult that wants to eat — well, everyone. The background — a whole winter’s worth — is crammed into the first page, and the second and third are the contents of the town, along with a map and specific locations around town. The back two pages cover the NPCs and random tables. The final page is a blurb, for the “back” of the pamphlet. This is a damned fine module, that with some improvisation on behalf of the referee, will be a banging session or two, if you and your table can stomach it’s particular body horror. I’m fronting up with that because I’m going to spend much of the review criticising the choice of trifold pamphlet format.
A trifold pamphlet consists 3 panels per letter or A4 page: You’re effectively cramming 6 pages of information into 2 pages. This is a huge challenge, particularly if you’re aiming for something with a degree of complexity, as the author is with this. The first 3 panels — the first page— of the pamphlet are wall to wall exposition. No breaks, and even prepositions and articles have been trimmed to make it the content fit. The only relief is the small map. Space is at such a premium that font is used to differentiate sections. This page fits three pages of information into one. It’s masterfully efficient, but not masterfully legible. It needs desperately to breathe.
Which is sad, because the truth is there is space wasted on the back 3 panels, with the panel of random tables much more reasonably reducible to lists, the stat block for the Bone Worm taking a huge amount of unnecessary space given how unlikely you are to defeat it in a fight, and the front cover being largely unnecessary and overwritten compared to the rest of the pamphlet. Even within this format, room for breath could’ve been found, I think.
I’m not sure if it’s the need for brevity, but the writing is damned fine, and feels on point for a western. Where it’s not beautiful, it’s evocative or layered in meaning. It feels like the author could trust in the reader a little more, given how strong the writing is, to be honest. “Nobody seems interested in silver” is clever, and the character descriptions are excellent launching points — the best a pamphlet can really offer: “Tells lies easy as breathing” and “Resentful. Secret cache of tomato and vinegar. Missing lower arm.” all reveal much more than simply their words, to a clever referee. Even though I think the random tables waste space that might have been better used for legibility, they still do double duty, serving both player and referee. There’s really only one design misstep, and that’s hiding the journal beyond a roll, where learning the dirty history of the town is part of the fun. And given the amount of improvisation required, I think any referee capable of running this is likely to ignore that instruction anyway.
I’ve written extensively about problems with pamphlets before, and sadly this doesn’t answer the challenge: this is a pretty dense module, and it needs more space to breathe. It would be better as a longer module, even if text were not expanded. Information that would be given a page in another format, is given a sentence or two here.
But, despite this, Absolute Wurst slaps, and there are of course benefits to the format. Slip this into your copy of Frontier Scum for example, or even run it FKR from your pocket. You can’t do that expanded to 16 or more pages, even if it would read and process better expanded. I’d love to see an expanded version of this, to be honest, one day, but if you’re looking for a 1-shot or 2-shot horror module, and am happy to do a whole lot of improvisation (in this case you probably need a half decent knowledge of westerns to do so), that fits in the palm of your hand, I’d consider Absolute Wurst.
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.
Owe My Soul To The Company Store is a 28 page module for Mothership by Luther Gutekunst with illustrations by R Devlin and development and graphic design by Sam Sorensen. It’s a political, social sandbox, set in a crumbling space station. Tensions are at breaking point after 3 commsec rent-a-cops throw a dockworker out of an airlock. How will the PCs involve themselves? This was a complementary copy sent to me by the author. This is a Mothership-dense module, so I’ll review as I go.
The inside spread consists the two major areas mapped, and their encounters. I love referencing, and this spread is full of page references. You know where the next area is and which page it is on. 7 of 10 of the random encounters are references to specific characters in the module, with their page references. At the top of the page is a description of the areas, with a fair bit of really meaningful information for just two lines. The encounters are terse, and some of them require a little more improvisation that I’d like — for example, the “seditionist vandal” doesn’t appear in the text — but almost all of them are flavourful. This is really usable, and smartly positioned in the text. It’ll get a lot of use.
The second spread describes space station Isotelus and the major factions there. Isotelus is basically 1 explosion away from destruction, in the right place, although I’m not sure exactly how the players will find that out. The station descriptions need work. Either more useful highlighting is needed here — it’s preserved for items that are referenced — or it needed more judicious paragraphs or perhaps bullets. But, the factions are very cleverly thought through. Two corporate factions, at odds, and both at odds with the two activist factions, which are at odds with each other. Stirring the plot is a major criminal enterprise, which is most likely where the players will get their hands dirty initially. These factions couldn’t be better for the type of experience this module is promising, I just wish they were written in a more gameable way — the only specific character mentioned here is Adkins, even though other faction leaders appear throughout the book. Given the abundance of referencing, I wonder if this was cut due to space? This section could do a better job of briefing the referee in my opinion, but it’s a matter of a not-ideal vessel, rather than bad content. What I don’t have any criticisms of? The hooks for the PCs, which effectively hard-frame them into a response and a moral stance in the proceedings. It’s simple, clever, and brave to keep it this simple and prescriptive, but also, there’s also no value in beating around the bush: If you’re batting for social-political play, give the players politics ASAP.
The slave class here are the Labor Bodies, which get their own spread partially because they’re alien-like cybernetic clones of humans stolen off their rights, and partially because they drive almost all the drama in the city. They have a really, really striking appearance in all their art, too. The book does a great job of making them seem pitiful and worthy of fighting for, and making their creators irredeemable, but also making them very deadly foes that will almost certainly be ordered to fight the PCs, to ethically challenging results.
The next spread details the Flower and Bucket timelines next to each other — these being the corporate and labor portions of the station that are in conflict. These are two pages, visually linked across the spread, detailing connected actions across two locations. Each has between 10 and 12 events over 7 days. Now, to be clear these events snowball and really effectively communicate the escalation of multiple factions in response to each other. But, it’s a huge amount to process. I guess, if I planned on playing out each day as a session, I’d have a grasp of how to organise this practically as a referee. But, if I were playing it more organically, I think I’d struggle with coordinating it all. What may have helped, was if they’d been broken down a little more — perhaps into specific times, or AM and PM? I can, of course do this myself. But particularly as there seems to have been some attention paid to not overloading, this may have been a good thing to break down a little more. The other thing I’d love is if it was clear how these events escalating would be communicated to the players, at least when it’s meaningful, as while it’s useful for the referee to understand the context and escalation of events, it’s the impact on the station that really matters for the purpose of play.
To maximise the impact of the timeline, the next spread is a flowchart of 16 major NPCs. The intent of this relationship map is to scrawl all over it as things develop and change. At baseline, there are 4 peripheral NPCs with relationships with only one other character, and 5 central NPCs with 3 or more relationships. I like this a lot, but it’s starting to be a lot to juggle. Owe My Soul doesn’t come with any play aids, but I think if I were to run this, I’d really need to print this and the timeline off, I suspect, to keep my head in what’s going on.
Finally, the back end of the module is 16 locations. Notice the same number as NPCs? Each location has a starring role, and follows a similar format. A population, a two line description, and a node-based map that has the room description inside each node, is the primary location data. These nodes connect off-page, so you don’t have to flip back to the map in the inside cover all the time. That’s about half the page, and the other half is the NPC description, stat block, and a section titled “What can you do for them?”. This is an absolutely fire structure for this kind of social crawl. The locations themselves are very much sets for the inhabitants of the station to act in, and to reflect on them and provide information on them. Perfect for the intent here, but not a spatially focused crawl at all. That said, I like the spaces a lot, by ambience.
While we have the classic Mothership conflict between poetry and technicality that I spoke about in Resonant showing up here as well, Gutekunst manages to pepper in some absolute beauty lines where there’s capacity: “He dreams of a better world, of fork-lines and switch-bodies, of terraformed worlds, of the brotherhood beyond mankind.” or “Portable heaters sulk in every corner. Permeated with the oily scent of labor bodies’ blood.”. Evocative, creative, good writing. There’s something like this in most every location, but the amount of information that needed to be communicated on the other pages precluded it being right through the book, sadly. What it is though, is gorgeous when it needs to be, and cleverly designed most everywhere else.
Sam Sorensen is on graphic design and development here, and absolutely nails it, despite the challenges. It’s a complicated piece of writing, with a lot of moving pieces, and you can tell a load of thought went into making it as legible as possible. I don’t think, while reducing the complexity to its detriment, you could make it any more legible. And this is done in clever ways that don’t just rely on writing and theory, but visual design as well. At a basic level, layout is very solid, with clear headings, referencing and highlighting, and excellent use of colour, contrast and light for navigability. Spreads are visually distinct, for easy skimming, except in the key for good reasons. Areas are consistently computer coded throughout the book, white for the Flower and black for the Bucket, making for strong contrasting visual spaces that also communicate information. Art is both visually compelling and complementary of the layout, and do a good job of differentiating even the labor bodies from each other. The big gap here is the lack of play aids to assist the management of the complexity; what’s here is good, but in the process of running, I feel like something like what we saw in Witchburner to help both referee and players track movements and developments would be worthwhile.
Owe My Soul is a tour-de-force of a social-political module. It’s up there with Witchburner as one of my favourites. Clever, complex, with well sketched characters, great writing and clever design. The negative, though, is that in modelling such a complex system of relations, it becomes very challenging to run. I think it would be worth it, if you and your table enjoy a powderkeg social dynamic. But for me, I’d really need to study it to make sure I had everything straight. It’s a very intricate puzzle. It’s not your typical Mothership module, despite featuring familiar working class horror themes, and it stands out in the crowd. Keep an eye out for what Gutekunst does next, ya’ll: Owe My Soul To The Company Store is our first great module of the year.
Sharky is a fantasy roleplaying adventure module written for Old School Essentials or other, similar, fantasy roleplaying games for low-level adventurers. In it, your heroes (or rogues) will travel into an undersea cave complex, to investigate a beast that is wreaking havok in the seaside village of Conchi.
This is a 50 page softcover filled with interesting characters, compelling factions and weird magical items, set in the same world as Curse of Mizzling Grove. The village of Conchi has 8 locations and the characters that dwell there, and Catacomb Cave is a 31 room dungeon, filled with secret passages and affected by the tides. Art is by Jay White, and it’s gorgeous! Check out the cover!
Sharky by Jay White
Anyway, Sharky is funding now, and I’d love for you all to have a play in this little sandbox.
In 2025 I’m reviewing zungeon zines. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques, just like Bathtub Reviews, but they’ll be a little briefer. The goal here is a little different: I want to spotlight what a craft-based, just-do-it approach to module writing can do.
The Desecration by Jonathan Loy is a 6 page, 6 room zungeon for Old School Essentials, inspired by Greek mythology. In it, a naiad Ismene provides the local village with clean water. The guardian of her shrine is dies, and you can choose to aid in saving the village — or pilfer for your own gain!
The layout is inspired by 80s modules, with positives and negatives that entails, but it’s not terrible, and the dungeon scrawl map is pretty good. Serviceable, and as good as plenty on the market you’re ponying up cash for a layout for.
The hooks here need a little tweaking — as is, they largely relate the premise, and I think it’s better if they twist the premise or impact the how the characters interact with the shrine. Suggesting that the sapphire has special powers that might tempt them or cause them to fear it, or placing them in more direct opposition with the village, the rival adventurers or the nymph would bring a lot to the module.
The random encounters here are flavourful, but don’t add much in the way of tension. I think, in a 6 room dungeon, that’s a sensible approach — particularly if you’re putting a lot into the rooms, you don’t have to lay it on too thick with random encounters. I’m not sure the rooms are interactive enough, here, though. Here’s what I’d tweak: There are two puzzles, and I’d keep them. I’d remove the adventuring party from the 4th room, and put something there: An encounter with the ghost of the guardian, seeking its’ severed head and heckling, perhaps? And put the praying villagers into the remaining empty rooms, with a little more spice, by naming them and giving them a little personality, as Loy has the adventurer. But I’d increase the risk of random encounters, so that the adventuring party is more likely to show up and interfere in more other rooms as their primary mode of involvement. This gives the random encounters focus and a clear role in the proceedings — but also, if you do this, you need to think about how often they’re occurring to make sure they actually occur.
The rooms are keyed out in a style reminiscent of the OSE house style, which for me is a little too wordy, but it gives you a lot to work with if you’re a reluctant improviser. I really like the meaty encounters that are here — the nymph, the adventuring party, and the flood trap are all fun encounters, and the empty rooms have flavourful descriptions. I think those empty rooms could be more meaningfully empty, though, perhaps revealing a way the magical waters could rejuvenate the slain guardian, if a puzzle was solved, or revealing lore in a cumulative way with the other rooms.
There is a prayer effects table (which I like for its thematic randomness, everything from drenching to cursing to a magi wand), and a list of potential results for obvious approaches to the adventure. I like these, a lot, to be honest, as they really lean into the central ethical conflict at the core of the module, and ethical conundrums make for fun play in my experience.
The changes I’ve suggested would make this an absolute banger, I think, but as it stands I’d totally still check The Desecration out. It’s hard to fill a sandbox with small but fun dungeons that take a session or two to play through, and this is still a strong candidate for adding to your campaign map; certainly better than most of what you’d throw together yourself the night before.
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 end of January marks my 100th Bathtub Review (not counting my I Read Reviews, so the number may be closer to 150), so I’m celebrating with an Introductory Extravaganza, where I review a different Dungeons and Dragons starter module every week for a few weeks. In the last month I covered the Village of Hommlet (AD&D), the Sunless Citadel (D&D 3e), the Lost Mine of Phandelver (D&D 5e), and the Iron Coral (Into the Odd). Today we’re wrapping up with the Blancmange and Thistle (Troika!).
This is actually the thumbnail for the Foundry VTT edition, but it matches the book I’m reading from, and its contents are different from the version you can buy on the Troika! website.
The Blancmange and Thistle is a 23 page introductory module for Troika! by Daniel Sell. There are a few versions of it; I’m reviewing the version in the 2023 printing with the Andrew Walter art, specifically, rather than the more commonly available version which in my opinion has terrible layout, although the content is much the same for those of you who care little about such things. In it, the players are forced to share a room on the sixth floor of the Blancmange & Thistle — what will they encounter in a hotel run by mandrills in the inter-dimensional city of Troika?
Blancmange & Thistle is laid out in single column layout, breaking into a 1:2 ratio second column occasionally for things like stat blocks. The only information flagged is mechanical information such as skills or statistics — almost everything else is in plain text, written in paragraphed prose. Those reading my reviews for some time know that I’m not always a fan, and while Sell’s authorial voice is sumptuous and pulpy, I do struggle here. It’s balanced with generous margins, paragraph breaks and padding, but marred by inconsistencies in positioning (randomly in a 1:1 column at the bottom of page 112 for example) and the odd use of the 1:2 ratio just for stat blocks with minimal padding where brief stat blocks would suffice. The paragraphing really doesn’t want any orphans or widows at all, to the point there are some absurdly large white spaces that feel unintentional; I can’t decide if this was a good decision, but to my eye it’s not. Given the success of Troika! these are places where some will have used spot art if they cared so deeply about orphaned lines, but instead we have bold white spaces — this I think is a spot where the solid layout choices of the greater rulebook is negatively affecting the module at its back, similarly to what we saw in The Iron Coral. The Walter art, like the rest of the art in this edition, is lovely and reminiscent of the line art used in RPGs in the late 80s and early 90s; it suits Troika! a little better than the iconic art in the free version, but is a little less striking and unique.
Structurally, Blancmange and Thistle is unique: There is no map, simply something occurring on each floor (if you take the stairs, you’ll experience them all), and someone getting into the lift on each floor (if you don’t take the stairs, you’ll experience them all). You can of course, exit or enter the lift as you choose, which means the “map” is simply a 5 x 2 grid of locations, 10 interesting encounters described each in about a page. These encounters are, all of them, intriguing on their own and intended to interact with each other in potentially interesting ways. They are a masterclass in how to bring the weirdness that is the list of advanced skills and backgrounds in Troika! to your adventures. My only criticism of the writing of course, is that it’s just too much: In providing the voice and aesthetic of Troika! Sell has rendered the module unplayable, or at least, I’m either reading his text out loud self-censoring or taking long pauses whenever the players enter a new space as I parse the text and then recite what I feel is important back at them. When your prose is key to communicating your aesthetic, I feel like you just need to work it into read-aloud text, rather than this semi-novelistic prose, else it becomes an impenetrable wall.
Referee advice in Blancmange & Thistle largely amounts to a number of places where the referee is encouraged to improvise in various ways, and one section where it advises when it’s appropriate to create new advanced skills and how to do so. That’s not much, but it’s a little more than in the Village of Hommlet, and much more than the Iron Coral. There is next to no tutorialising for the players though: To players not already engaged in Troika!s style of play, and not expecting multiple deaths of player characters, I could see many players being turned off by this module. There is almost no interesting choice allowed — you cannot avoid the stairs or the elevator, and of course simply finding a different hotel is outside the scope of the module — and roughly half of the encounters are potentially deadly. One of them is a dream and when you wake you’re alive. Once you reach your destination, if you choose to go to the party, you’re rewarded with rumours of potential adventure in the great city of Troika! These, for the poor referee, are also entirely to be improvised.
Of the introductory modules I’ve read, Blancmange & Thistle is the only one that I genuinely think is a bad introduction. Goblin Mail or the Big Squirm are more interesting introductions to the game, utilise the rules more appropriately, and show the players what it’s like to be in this strange world in a similar way. Blancmange & Thistle does communicate is that Troika! is weird and strange and to expect bizarre interactions with unique individuals — it just does very little else in terms of communicating the joy of adventuring in Troika! Unlike the others, Blancmange & Thistle attempts to be a stepping off point for the referee to invent their own Troika! with their players, but Troika! itself doesn’t really allow for that, rather relying on the implicit world building in the backgrounds, just like a number of other Troika! settings have. I think this urge in Troika! is misguided, which I’ve written about previously in my review of Goblin Mail. I want a module that gives me a fun time with my friends, not something that requires me to spend the whole time making things up to cover the places where the author couldn’t be bothered doing any work. Of all of these introductory modules, Troika is the only one that doesn’t give me at least a few sessions of play, and that doesn’t give a clear indication (or even sell me on a pitch) for what the game will play out like in the future.
The big question that I’m left wondering at the end of this series of reviews, is “What is the purpose of an introductory module?”, because I think that, some concepts aside, all 5 I’ve reviewed have had different perspectives on what introductory modules should do. What almost all of them do succeed at is being exemplars of what to expect from an adventure in the system in question; Dungeons and Dragons evolved over time, and with it so did the style of module introducing it. The Iron Coral and Blancmange & Thistle take wildly different tacts based on the directions those games head in; here is think the only active failure of an introductory module is Blancmange & Thistle, although if its primary goal was in fact primarily to communicate vibes, the issue here is that I think that goal was a misguided one, not that it actually failed to achieve it.
What I’ve come to realise is that I personally believe introductory modules should put more effort into tutorialising the game they introduce; the only one of these 5 that do this to an adequate extent is Lost Mine of Phandelver. What so much of our hobby relies on is oral transmission of both solid rules and directives that inform how we play and what choices we make. This is why sometimes you play and enjoy a game, and wonder “was that a good game, or is Jane just a good referee?” What does that mean though? If I were to set out a list of criteria, having reviewed both great and mediocre attempts, how would I go about achieving this goal? Well, I’d probably go through my game, and break down the key things a player and a referee needs to learn to play: For the referee, this is likely to be the primary principles of the game (although for principle driven games, this applies to players as well). Last year I read Shadowdark and Five Torches Deep, they both lay out principles in their rulebooks. I should have encounters where they can exercise those muscles. For the players, they should be each mechanic that is likely to be engaged with: Firstly simple conflict resolution, and then later procedures if they’re necessary, whatever the game attempts at combat or mass combat if it has it, an interaction with some examples of how to interpret perhaps a social encounter and any rolls associated with it. Examples of what things to write down in my notebook. How the character sheets change in response to what happens. Those are the kind of things you need. And, to do that, I suggest the Phandelver approach isn’t foolish: Start on rails, to introduce the basics in 1 or 2 encounters, then open up the world, to allow them to learn the rest of the game as they choose to engage with it. I’d love to see more games tutorialise like this, because the best here is by Wizards of the Coast, and is deeply flawed, so I think we can do better. I’m also surprised there aren’t more independent tutorials (I know there are some, but I can’t review every introductory module in this series — one I’m a big fan of is Tomb Robbers of the Crystal Frontier, and Another Bug Hunt is very thoughtful if flawed as well). It also leaves a huge amount of space for independent creators to make introductory modules for games that aren’t first party,
Troika! is available here. Luckily, it’s free, so you can check it out and decide whether I’m being unfair on Blancmange & Thistle yourself. I really like Troika! and there are a number of excellent modules for it, for example Goblin Mail. Check those out!
I use affiliate links where I can, to keep reviewing sustainable! Please click them if you’re considering buying something I’ve reviewed! Want to know more?
Have a module, adventure or supplement you’d like me to review? Read my review policy here, and then email me at idle dot cartulary at gmail dot com, or direct message me on Discord!
Dungeon Regular is a show about modules, adventures and dungeons. I’m Nova, also known as Idle Cartulary and I’m reading through Dungeon magazine, one module at a time, picking a few favourite things in that adventure module, and talking about them. On this episode I talk about Threshold of Evil, in Issue #10, March 1988! You can find my famous Bathtub Reviews at my blog, https://playfulvoid.game.blog/, you can buy my supplements for elfgames and Mothership at https://idlecartulary.itch.io/, check out my game Advanced Fantasy Dungeons at https://idlecartulary.itch.io/advanced-fantasy-dungeons and you can support Dungeon Regular on Ko-fi at https://ko-fi.com/idlecartulary.
Playful Void 