This 'side adventure' is an optional addition to the core adventure The Rebel Prince, you may choose to run it at a particular point - it's all about staging a prison break on behalf of said Prince of someone he reckons will be useful in the fight against the Kan Demon. If you don't want to run this, provision is made for him to turn up anyway (either he got out on his own or never got banged up in the first place, it's not really mentioned). Many parties won't baulk at breaking someone out of gaol anyway, but if yours worries about the ethics of it all, well, here's another of those tough choices this campaign is full of!

The individual in question is one Roger Blodgett, a seaman and explorer whose 'crime' was to sail out into the open ocean to find out what was over the horizon, something forbidden by the Farasene Imperium of Tere. The gaol of Spur Rock is located on a tiny spit of land twenty miles off the eastern coast of Tere and pretty far from anywhere. It contains a mix of political prisoners, criminals from important families, and a few souls unlucky enough to know something they shouldn't... and the guards are not much better, the absolute dregs of the Imperium army exiled here, probably at least as deserving of being behind bars as the inmates they guard. This adventure, perhaps with a few name changes, can also be run as a part of any campaign or as a stand-alone.

The adventure opens with the party being asked to undertake the prison break, and being provided with a little background including the useful information that there's a smugglers' cave underneath the prison building that is said to connect with the cellars. They'll be taken there by sea and will be collected once they signal that they want to be taken off again. The adventure is written with the assumption that the party will use it to gain access, but there's sufficient information about the place that you ought to be able to cope with other plans if the party proposes them. There's a plan and room descriptions - and the place is every bit as dire and dreary as you might imagine. One or two of the guards might be worth talking with, although there are no details on the prisoners (save Blodgett himself) except that they are in poor shape, you might want to add some detail here.

This is a neat prison break adventure that ought to occupy your party nicely for a session or two. It's one where stealth rather than brute force is probably the best course of action, although the guards are possibly a bit under-powered if the party takes the approach of all-out combat... perhaps that is to be expected of the dissolute dregs that they are supposed to be. With atmospheric writing, it's a good way to gain the favour of a prince.

Return to The Prisoner of Spur Rock page.

Reviewed: 25 May 2017