RPGPundit Reviews: Death Frost Doom

Death Frost Doom is an "OSR"-style (old school renaissance, in case you aren't up with the lingo the kids are using these days) adventure for D&D; its been written up in such a way that it could pretty well be played with any version of D&D/AD&D, and certainly could be easily adapted to be played with any other fantasy game (Forward... to Adventure!, for example).

This adventure was written by James Raggi, and it comes in the form of a small booklet, with a few black and white illustrations. The inside cover is the dungeon map, and its quite a nice graph-paper dungeon indeed.

I recently reviewed Mr. Raggi's "Green Devil Face" booklets, and found them to be almost entirely useless. I'm glad to say that Death Frost Doom allows me to somewhat reform Mr.Raggi's reputation. Its a very clever adventure "module" for D&D (or again, just about any fantasy game), and I think it would make an excellent horror/fantasy adventure for a low to mid-level party.

I want to be careful not to give away too many of the details here, as that would somewhat spoil the experience. However, I'll say that the basic premise is this: Death Frost Doom is a potentially killer dungeon, and once more we see Mr.Raggi's obsession with near-gygaxian traps; however in this case the dangers (both in terms of traps and monsters) are far more dependent on how careful and clever the PC party is.  With a few exceptions, the danger is such that if the PCs think things through and are cautious, they can survive; if they are not careful, they're royally fucked.

The premise for presenting the adventure can be just as a dungeon to go to that the PCs might have heard about, if you're running that kind of "Sandbox campaign", or if you want, it can involve some kind of a quest to obtain an item. The dungeon itself is the catacombs of an ancient cult to a death/blood God. The whole area is cursed. The catacombs are found up the side of a mountain, relatively far from civilization, meaning the PC party will need to be well-prepared to handle the situation.  Resource management would certainly be important. Additionally, the nature of the accursed place is such that the longer you spend in the area, the more likely that the party will start to get seriously messed up, discouraging the PC party from going too slowly and trying to excessively rest to recover their abilities.

The adventure is also somewhat deceptive, in a good way, in that it is highly likely that the party can go a long way while encountering creepy things but without having any major combat or peril; and then, if they're not careful, all hell can break loose. With one noteworthy exception, the opponents are almost entirely undead of different kinds, so having a Cleric in the party can certainly affect the odds of survival. Having a druid can also change the tone of the game in a significant way.

Again, I'd rather not go into excessive detail as to the nature of the dungeon itself, though I'll say that there's a good deal of traps, many of which are magical, and pretty well all of which are topical to the theme of the adventure.  The tone of the dungeon and the adventure is suitably creepy and ominous.  The author correctly describes the adventure as a "Weird Tale", and credits the influences of the likes of Lovecraft, Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and others in that light.

There are some very interesting items, including curses, and a magnificent item in particular (the Purple Lotus Powder) that has one of those truly awesome random tables; reckless PCs will end up being either very happy or very sorry getting hold of this item.

The adventure is only about 20 pages long, but has more than enough to cover all that is needed for this adventure, and to provide your gaming group for a session or two of great play. At the end of the book, a second mini-adventure is provided ("The Tower", reprinted and revised from an adventure that originally appeared in "Fight On!" magazine).  This adventure is a nice bonus, but is not nearly as interesting as the main course, and the theme of the adventure is a bit of a mindfuck; essentially, its meant to be be a trick for "greedy adventurers"; since most D&D adventurers are after loot, this might be seen as somewhat needlessly punitive.

In any case, I'm glad to say that I certainly could recommend this product to anyone who enjoys old-school fantasy play, particularly with that horror/weird-tale twist. Its certainly a whole world away from the previous product I'd reviewed from this author.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Stanwell Shell Deluxe + Stockebbye's Proper English

I own this module and agree with pretty much everything in this review.  I look forward to running it someday.

I bought the same author's Random Esoteric Creature Generator
For Classic Fantasy Role Playing Games
And Their Modern Simulacra, based upon reading the last review.  Green Devil Face didn't sound like my cuppa, but reading about the author found me some stuff that did!  

I am totally going to buy Death Frost Doom and the "Three Brides" adventure along with the companion massive collection of insane NPCs.  Pundit Bump FTW!