• Bathtub Review: Sooty Beards

    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.

    Sooty Beards is a 46 page setting module from Furtive Goblin and John Gregory, with Charlie Ferguson-Avery on art and on layout. It details a town framed as “Khazad-dum meets dying coal town”, and the people and potential for adventure therein. While it’s system agnostic, it’s compatible with Troika! and B/X, but feels intended to be played with Troika! in ways I’ll detail later. It’s available now, with digital sales being used to fund a print run; I was provided a complementary copy by the author.

    The writing here is luscious and conversational, with a dry humour, but in unashamedly meandering style. The goal here is to immerse the reader in the world deeply enough that they remember and regurgitate the atmosphere more than the details — or at least that’s the effect. It’s a pleasure to read, but using Vesallberg at the table means for me a lot of sticky notes and highlighting. I’m reading in digital, and I’d recommend the print version, when it’s available, for that reason. In digital, it’s a pleasure to read and a struggle to use. These sections of prose are interspersed with more clearly gameable content, in the form of random tables, stat blocks and items. These are regularly repeated throughout the districts covered by the module that consist the majority of the book.

    We open with a general overview of the city, including the major factions, and reasons to be in the city in the form of 20 backgrounds. These backgrounds are lovely for giving characters unique goals, and really impact the direction and interactions you might take for the city, fulfilling everything you want, really, from them, except that they don’t provide specific names or places or locations in any instance — you have to provide those yourself, either improvised or from your memory of the book. That little extra detail would have gone a long way, in my opinion. The factions here are framed as a kind of classic era gazetteer covering local politics, and hence doesn’t provide the kind of clear list of projects or goals that would make this kind of failing city really pop. This is disappointing, because I feel like it could and should be a veritable powder keg ready to blow. You could, with some effort, top these political factions up with characters and clocks detailing their immediate goals, but it’s disappointing that legwork wasn’t actually done for us, because I would’ve launched into the primary body of work on fire with ideas if it had been.

    For each of the districts — there are 8 — there’s an introductory paragraph, 3 or so quotes from NPCs about the location, a table telling us what used to be there and what has replaced it as it fell into disuse, a creature and its’ stat block unique to that location, and a list of 3 or so items that people there may carry. Oh, and a three word summary right at the top, which serves as a kind of mood board for those of us easily overwhelmed — a nice touch for people like me. Overall, these pages are a framework from which to improvise action within these districts. To use this well, you’ll either have to rely on an anti-canon approach — sharing filing the gaps with the other players — or be a very confident improviser, because either you are searching the pdf for references to Pewter Boys and Hog Dogs or you’re winging it as you go and creating continuity flaws that you’re going to have to contend with. This might have been managed with referencing, as was used in Reach of the Roach God, but as is, given the structural and prosody choices, you’re going to have to have an excellent memory or risk creating continuity errors whenever you introduce a new term. The referee advice supports the loose canon approach: When things get aimless have something from a table in the district happen. I think there needs to be more explicit advice, though, because enough of the features are misleadingly named or do double duty, that it might not be immediately apparent how to use them on the fly. But their utility could be more clearly communicated: for example, groups and factions are introduced in “what’s here now” sections such as the aforementioned Pewter Boys, and many of the quotes are actually from NPCs that’ll likely become favourites, and that can point clearly to goals and points of interest.

    A point of interest is the bonus content, 36 backgrounds for Troika! This set of backgrounds continues the theme of information being disguised in the form of other information throughout this module. As characters, you explicitly aren’t from Vesallberg: “You’re not a local. You can’t be, if your instinct is to move toward Vesallberg instead of away from it. No, you’ve come from somewhere else with a reason to visit the mountain.”, so these backgrounds are effectively useless to players unless you break a core tenet of the text. But they’re very good backgrounds, coming each with an in-character quotation, a solid Troika-esque description, and a special that’s flavourful (“a photographic memory of every dead face you’ve seen” — yes please!), as well as useful unique advanced skills (Drakk Wrasslin’ and Aquire Grant Money). The equipment —“leaden eartrumpet” — is even fun! These backgrounds, by implication, are another way to build the world, and they’re more likely to be used by the referee in improvising characters than by the players, as no fool from within Vasellberg would ever stay there.

    The layout and art here is gorgeous and complementary, with maps and sketches filling in the margins, clear headings and consistent repeating structures making it a very legible text. In print, this is going to gorgeous, messy and legible, but in pdf it takes time to load as you flick through it quickly, because it’s structured in multiple layers that always load sequentially. This is a little frustrating, because finding specific information here without any index or referencing system requires the use of search, and on Acrobat in my current gen iPhone, when searching for “rusted”, it takes 5 seconds for the next search term to load.

    Where I was expecting something akin to Stuart Watkinson’s Largshire, Vesallberg in Sooty Beards is closer to what I’d imagine you’d get if Daniel Sell decided to write a guide to the city of Troika — it’s compelling, filled with weird little guys with unclear goals, but is impressionistic and hyperdiegetic to a fault, and very reliant on improvisation. In fact, to be honest, this is a perfect guide to a possible city of Troika, something that has been thus not forthcoming. It doesn’t attempt to be a definitive guide, and so if you’re looking for that in a city supplement, this is absolutely perfect. It’s just that that isn’t what I personally look for in a city supplement.

    What this isn’t is a source for definitive adventure hooks — “Startlingly wide and deep, its bottom covered in shadow. Something is down there.” is typical of the hooks here. We don’t have definitive factions with definitive goals. We don’t have definitive buildings, but randomly generated. Honestly, that’s what I want in a city supplement. I recognise that the scope and scale of a city — Vesallberg is the size of a mountain, after all — makes it both challenging to fill practically and that in a city of significant size, many of your encounters are random and impressionistic. But the problem is that you travel through cities between landmarks, and Vesallberg doesn’t have any of these, either in its descriptions or on its’ map. So if you’ve the engineer background and you’re searching for wondrous schematics, there’s nowhere to look. And if you do ask, there’s no way to find out what they’d say, easily. So, as a referee, and a player rolls that, I have to pdf search for “steam” or “rusty parts”, and I do find things, but the text does nothing to help me to find those things.

    Overall, I have heavily mixed feelings on Sooty Beards, because I prefer something that offers immediately gameable situations — if I’m going to buy this kind of setting at this size, Largshire is more my cup of tea. But knowing the popularity of modules that are entirely world-building, and the popularity of settings that are entirely Troika! backgrounds, I think there will be a large audience of people for whom this is exactly what they’re after, they just never knew it until now. Sooty Beards’ writing is excellent and characterful. It’s a pleasure to read. The districts themselves are compelling and personal. It takes Troika’s hyperdiegetic backgrounds and expands them the scale of a city, and a dying dwarven mining city, at that. Similar to Goblin Mail, Sooty Beards is a welcome next step in the development of creative responses to Troika. If impressionistic and fun-to-read are high on your list of desired qualities, and you take pleasure in improvising your city around those impressions and quote-length character snapshots, Sooty Beards is for you.

    Idle Cartulary

    Playful Void is a production of Idle Cartulary. If you liked this article, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing to the Idle Digest Newsletter. If you want to support Idle Cartulary continuing to provide Bathtub Reviews, I Read Reviews, and Dungeon Regular, please consider a one-off donation or becoming a regular supporter of Idle Cartulary on Ko-fi.

  • Zungeon Zunday: Taken By The Blood Men

    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.

    Taken By The Blood Men is a 1 page zungeon for B/X-like games (with versions for Into the Odd, 5e, and Tunnels and Trolls) by Andreas Folkesten. In it, you venture in to a dungeon populated by the titular Blood Men, perhaps to prevent the ritual to return them to a waiting prisoner’s body.

    I say perhaps, because the first striking thing about this tiny module is that the framing changes drastically depending on the hook you choose — You might be Lennart’s lover, prisoner, or simply stumble upon the dungeon unawares. These hooks are stellar, changing the experience of the module from one where you’re assisting the villain, to an escape room, to a survival horror module. It pretty seamlessly absorbs these different approaches. It’s pretty cool.

    These hooks, and the timed ritual, together are what really make the module tick. You have 7 turns before the ritual is performed, unless it’s interrupted. I love these as a core drive for a small module, rather than a random encounter table Very cool. Because of this, a lot of the rooms are waiting in stasis — for example, the ritual assumes that the Amalia is ready to be sacrificed, unless you first find her in room 6, in which case she has to escaped. A lot of people hate a dungeon where everyone is in stasis until someone walks into the room, but I think this is forgivable in a dungeon only 8 rooms and 1 page long.

    I adore the literal blood-men — not what I expected, and the logical extensions that they bring — can’t talk so they write in blood, vulnerable to vampire bats so half the dungeon is barred to them. This is a cool centrepiece to the modules, for me, but I’d love for the characters here to be given a little more meat — I don’t really know how the mute Lennart-clones interact or what they might communicate, nor do I Amalia, the only other character. But, another sentence or two on those two subjects and I wouldn’t have any concerns.

    Overall, Taken By the Blood Men is a neat little dungeon to drop onto your campaign map. It’s a night of play, it’s fun, and it has a variety of options for how to incorporate it into your game. If you want a small module, are happy to improvise and rely heavily on your reaction rolls, then this is a fun inclusion.

    Idle Cartulary

    Playful Void is a production of Idle Cartulary. If you liked this article, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing to the Idle Digest Newsletter. If you want to support Idle Cartulary continuing to provide Bathtub Reviews, I Read Reviews, and Dungeon Regular, please consider a one-off donation or becoming a regular supporter of Idle Cartulary on Ko-fi.

    ,
    , , , ,

  • Bathtub Review: Titans of the Verdant Maw

    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.

    Titans of the Verdant Maw is a 26 page module for Old School Essentials by Gabe L, with art by Carlos Castilho. In it, you are hired to destroy a behemoth built by a mad cyborg goblin, and must venture into a deadly dungeon populated by savage machines to find it.

    Titans opens with 4 pages of random tables. The rumours sadly don’t really contribute much to play. We need them to have juicier worms, else they’re set dressing. I would rewrite all of these so they change how you interact with the encounters. Random anomalies and nighttime events are interesting and evocative, although I don’t know why they’re always happening. I’d love for them to be tied into lore, for more impact. They’re lovely though: “Spectral figures from a long-lost era sweep through the area” or “Mirage cats stalk the adventurers, testing their defences.”. I’d rather a little more from fourth, notable NPCs table, though: Striking as figures, none of these have any goals or relationships to tie them to the world. Interestingly the random encounter table does not get a whole page, although it would benefit from the space, as they’re all just “1d4 goblin” encounters with stat blocks rather than creatures with goals or needs. It’s a fairly small space, this jungle, and I’m assuming they follow the OSE rules, so I suspect that the ten random encounters occurring 1-in-6, plus the 3-in-6 chance of night time events, plus the 1-in-6 chance of an anomaly…if they’re exclusive, you’ll have a lot of encounters, and if they’re not, that’s a lot of dice rolls. I think we’d benefit from an overloaded table, anomalies being folded into the random encounter table, or another alternative. Even folding all of these into a single, 3-tier table would be better, and more space efficient, to boot.

    The locations are impressionistic, very evocative, each with a few points of interest. They aren’t very interactive, though — no puzzles, lots of potential combat encounters, not a lot of support for social play. If you want something other than a fight, you’re relying heavily on the referee to do the heavy lifting. In a lot of ways, this feels like best possible version of a key from ‘80s Dungeon Magazine, brief, simple; but without supporting a lot of complexity or broader play options even though the potential is present.

    Interestingly, there’s no map of this jungle — no hex map, no point crawl, and no random table of locations, and guidance regarding how to navigate. I was surprised — I even checked if there was an extra file I’d missed. No map makes it hard to follow the OSE wilderness travel rules — and I think the lack of either a map or rules for navigating the mapless jungle makes this module a little incomplete. It wouldn’t take long to throw together a point crawl — honestly Cairn 2e’s forestcrawl would be perfect for this — but I wish it was here to begin with.

    The book is finished up with 3 classes, a bestiary, and a list of treasures. The bestiary needs a little more spice — I’d hoped the lack of social support would have been made up for in a dedicated section, but we’re not given much. Even a little mien table as seen in Troika! would be an improvement. Two of these beasts cause mutations, and that’s backed up with a very simple mutations table. The treasures are thematically appropriate, but the two most interactive are the grappling hook and the ooze forge, with the rest being pretty basic and not flexible in their uses like great OSR magical items.

    There’s a strange tension here — Titans doesn’t feel suited to OSE in many ways. The terse, uncomplicated keying, the lack of concern about travel specifics, and the one-line mutations seem unsuited to the system. But there’s a lot of attention and care put into the stat blocks and the classes. My overall feeling is that this would be better as a capsule game — something with its rules baked in — rather than as a module for Old School Essentials. I think it doesn’t live up to its potential, as it is, but with tweaking, particularly to the rumours, the map, and the social dynamics, this would be a lot of fun to run. Titans of the Verdant Maw is pretty cool, though, and I’d be excited to see what Gabe L does next. If you’re module where sword and planet meets beer and pretzels, this is a great module for you.

    Idle Cartulary

    Playful Void is a production of Idle Cartulary. If you liked this article, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing to the Idle Digest Newsletter. If you want to support Idle Cartulary continuing to provide Bathtub Reviews, I Read Reviews, and Dungeon Regular, please consider a one-off donation or becoming a regular supporter of Idle Cartulary on Ko-fi.

  • Bathtub Review: Planet Vesta (Expansion)

    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.

    Idle Cartulary

    Playful Void is a production of Idle Cartulary. If you liked this article, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing to the Idle Digest Newsletter. If you want to support Idle Cartulary continuing to provide Bathtub Reviews, I Read Reviews, and Dungeon Regular, please consider a one-off donation or becoming a regular supporter of Idle Cartulary on Ko-fi.

  • Zungeon Zunday: Tavurchower

    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.

    Idle Cartulary

    Playful Void is a production of Idle Cartulary. If you liked this article, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing to the Idle Digest Newsletter. If you want to support Idle Cartulary continuing to provide Bathtub Reviews, I Read Reviews, and Dungeon Regular, please consider a one-off donation or becoming a regular supporter of Idle Cartulary on Ko-fi.

    ,

  • Bathtub Review: The Curious Creeps in Crimson Creek

    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.

    Idle Cartulary

    Playful Void is a production of Idle Cartulary. If you liked this article, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing to the Idle Digest Newsletter. If you want to support Idle Cartulary continuing to provide Bathtub Reviews, I Read Reviews, and Dungeon Regular, please consider a one-off donation or becoming a regular supporter of Idle Cartulary on Ko-fi.

  • Zungeon Zunday: Bloodhoney

    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.

    Idle Cartulary

    Playful Void is a production of Idle Cartulary. If you liked this article, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing to the Idle Digest Newsletter. If you want to support Idle Cartulary continuing to provide Bathtub Reviews, I Read Reviews, and Dungeon Regular, please consider a one-off donation or becoming a regular supporter of Idle Cartulary on Ko-fi.

    ,

  • Five Not-Boring Elementals

    Elements are dead boring. Most of them, at least.

    Photo by Igor Haritanovich on Pexels.com

    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.

    Playful Void is a production of Idle Cartulary. If you liked this article, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing to the Idle Digest Newsletter. If you want to support Idle Cartulary continuing to provide Bathtub Reviews, I Read Reviews, and Dungeon Regular, please consider a one-off donation or becoming a regular supporter of Idle Cartulary on Ko-fi.

  • Bathtub Review: 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. 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.

    Idle Cartulary

    Playful Void is a production of Idle Cartulary. If you liked this article, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing to the Idle Digest Newsletter. If you want to support Idle Cartulary continuing to provide Bathtub Reviews, I Read Reviews, and Dungeon Regular, please consider a one-off donation or becoming a regular supporter of Idle Cartulary on Ko-fi.

  • Bathtub Review: Owe My Soul to the Company Store

    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.

    Idle Cartulary

    Playful Void is a production of Idle Cartulary. If you liked this article, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing to the Idle Digest Newsletter. If you want to support Idle Cartulary continuing to provide Bathtub Reviews, I Read Reviews, and Dungeon Regular, please consider a one-off donation or becoming a regular supporter of Idle Cartulary on Ko-fi.

Want to support Playful Void or Bathtub Reviews? Donate to or join my Ko-fi!

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!

Recent Posts

rootring: follow the ring from blog to blog, catch up on recent posts, and discover new TTRPG writing without relying on feeds, timelines, or recommendation algorithms.
Prev Next Random Ring

Categories

Archives

March 2026
M T W T F S S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031  

Recent Posts