In its original form, this was the first adventure released for the Living Arcanis shared campaign, under the Dungeons & Dragons 3e ruleset. Now it has been retooled using the new Arcanis RPG rules and released to a wider market.

On the face of it, the challenge is a simple one. The characters' mission is to retrieve a young scion of the nobility who is off on a 'gap-year' wander around Onara, as word of a plot laid by the Harvesters to kidnap him has come to light. Being Arcanis, of course, there are wheels within wheels...

The sequence of events moves at a fast pace, yet there's time for characters to interact, to think, to investigate, as well as to fight. Material is laid out in a logical fashion so as to be clear to the Chronicler what should be said, and how NPCs and monsters will behave depending on what the characters do, although it is assumed that the characters will follow the sequence as provided without too much deviation. There are one or two points where, unless critical die rolls are made, characters may fail to pick up essential details: they will be able to (more or less) complete the adventure without them - although they'd likely miss the climactic battle at the end - but will not have much chance of understanding what was actually going on! The scenario provides alternative endings to accommodate success or failure, and is intened as the first in a whole plot arc, so some points may become clear later even if they are missed during this adventure.

Whilst overall the adventure is laid out clearly, there are some minor niggles of misplaced words that a thorough proof-read would have eliminated; and at one point the text suggests that the characters would receive a favourable modifier if they mention a piece of information that, according to earlier text, they will not have been told!

However, it's a good adventure that provides an excellent introduction to just how devious things can get in this setting. There's a new monster, a nasty new Talent and, for those who want to use this in a shared campaign, the necessary certificates to print out. If you don't, there are still some good contacts and pointers to further adventure.

Return to So Ye Shall Reap page.

Reviewed: 21 March 2012