This, the second 'side adventure' of the Crashing Chaos campaign, slots in after events in Muscle, Sinew and Wood when the party leaves the doomed town of Bray's Bay aboard ship. Jarvis Island is midway between Bray's Bay and the Windsome Chain, which is the party's intended destination. Several ideas are provided for reasons why the party should investigate the island instead of continuing the journey - and there's even a note that this adventure could be lifted clean out of the Asatania campaign world and slotted into your own campaign instead!

The Introduction lays out what is going on, and then the adventure proper begins... with an attack at sea! If you are using one of the alternate hooks - and so have a party visiting Jarvis Island on purpose - you may wish to leave this out, but you may choose to have a fight at sea anyway if your group enjoys them. The information gained from this encounter pertains to the on-going campaign, so if you are running this adventure as part of something else you'll need to change it to suit. Then it's on to the island itself.

Supposedly uninhabited, there used to be a tin mine here which is now played out. There's a map of the island as well as copious background notes including details of the mine, the settlement that served it and a lighthouse. Although the place is deserted, there are a few signs that someone's been there... and then an odd ghostly figure appears! This leads to the meat of the adventure, as the party tried to find out what is going on and deal with it. The truth of the matter may or may not be discovered, but should the party get it wrong the consequences could be quite bad!

This is a cracking little adventure in its own right, and it adds an interesting twist to the Crashing Chaos campaign, with the potential for adding a long-running NPC that will continue to bedevil the party (and indeed anyone else) for a long time... it's suggested that an escape is engineered if the party figure out what is happening and look likely to take steps to avoid it, just to keep this intriguing side-plot going! Deliciously devious.

Return to The Ghost of Jarvis Island page.

Reviewed: 23 May 2017