The Sinking: Tunnels of Despair

Roleplaying and board games reviews, podcasts, videos and interviews

91429[1]By Thilo Graf

This installment of “The Sinking” from 0one Gamesis 17 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 2 pages of advertisements, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving 10 pages of content, so let’s check out the tunnels of despair, shall we?

This being an adventure review, the following contains SPOILERS. Potential players might want to skip to the conclusion.

Still here? Righty right, the PCs, while partying or investigating in the army ward, are in a bar and by one hook or another, notice that a barmaid (who might have had a tryst with a PC before) has been kidnapped. Tracking the kidnapper down into the tunnels under Circus Maximus (which come with maps), where they stumble across some less-than-friendly goons of the Crimson Medusa, a rather prominent organization of slavers and dealers in the illicit and after a flooded tunnel, they meet the true culprits of the kidnapping – slaves on the run from their tormentors, who wanted to steal food for their subterranean refugee camp and were caught by the barmaid, who is by the way unharmed. This leads to an interesting situation, where the PCs can gain allies in the proverbial underground by helping the slaves: They want a certain bugbear slavehunter and his rather smarty disguised operation aboard an exclusive “yacht” for “the privileged” taken down.

The yacht is fully mapped and the assault on it constitutes the second part of the adventure, where the PCs have all freedom to stage a smart attack on the barge before authority can shut them down. Not only will they have to contend with aforementioned bugbear, but also with his tengu crew, a half-giant and a rather unpleasant guttermage. Once successful, they have made powerful enemies and interesting friends.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are ok – I noticed some awkward phrases and minor punctuation errors here and there. Layout adheres to a 2-column standard and the b/w-artworks and maps are neat, especially for the very low price. The pdf comes with bookmarks. This adventure uses several classic tropes, but always has one or another minor addition that make them feel fresh, whether it is the new slingshot-weapon or the non-standard nature of some parts of the PC’s opposition. That being said, while this is by no means a bad scenario, it is also not one that blew me away. I thought some time and figured the glitches and great artwork/maps cancel each other out and thus arrive at a final verdict of 3 stars – an ok scenario for a very affordable price.

Endzeitgeist out.

The Sinking: Infestation is available from:

rpgnowlogo_sized43333333333333333333[1]drivetrhurpg_logo_sized5333333333333[1]

 

Leave a Reply