One of the best things a 1E designer can create is a starting play area for beginning PCs. The shining example from the old days would be The Secret of Bone Hill. I followed the example years ago with XRP’s White Dragon Run and I’m currently doing it again with the tentatively titled Dark Isles of Ravenwake.
It’s a handy thing to have… basic starting town, the wilderness around it described, random encounter tables, fixed encounters, and then the dungeon for the PCs to explore. There lies endless hours of exploration, role play, and combat.
Hoard of Delusion steps up to the plate with that same layout… created by old schoolers who know what a mini-campaign area should look like. It’s authors are: Mark and Sean Ahmed (Mark, of course, known in OSR circles as “Axe Mental”), Scot Hoover and Chris Hopkins. Axe does all the art, including the cover (he’s more well known for the frenetic cover of OSRIC), Scot edited the work as well as doing the cartography with Sean Stone, and the final layout was done by Russell Cone.
So… it’s officially for OSRIC or AD&D.
You can get it on DriveThruRPG in different forms: the watermarked PDF is $12, the softcover b&w version is $17 with the hard cover being $24… or… you can be sensible and order the softcover and the PDF for… $17 (the PDF essentially becomes free, so why not). It’s the PDF I’m reviewing here since the softcover won’t be in my hands until DTRPG’s printers quit dicking around and mail it.
I won’t go into too much detail here for the sake of spoiling it, but the basic premise is an arch-mage has three magic-using sons… all three becoming disappointments to dear old dad to various degrees. He creates three magical necklaces for his sons… bound by a geas that none of the possessors could harm the others… and presented them to his offspring in the desperate hope that would find a way to get along and work together. Upon the presentations, Dad gives up the ghost.
The entire module is part one of a three part series which seems to be tailored for… you guessed it… the three evil spell-slinging sons. One is an illusionist who is doing basically what I would do if I were an illusionist… messing with people’s heads (a side note: I love illusionists and I wish they had gotten more love back when 1E was the king of RPGs), and so this module centers around illusionary magic.
This module is set for 3 to 8 PCs of levels 1-4. I recommend at least 6 PCs, because parts of this art tough. Three simply won’t make it.
The main part is the village of Herth and its surrounding area. It’s highly detailed, including Castle Merkhen, and provides almost everything the PCs will need. NPCs are well fleshed out. NPC factions are described, and what’s always my favorite part of any town… the local rumors table… is creative.
There are four optional adventuring sites through the surrounding area… more geared for 1st level PCs to get them up to speed. You don’t have to use any of them, but it’s nice. All four are basically mini-dungeons.
Then we come to the Tower of Bones. Four levels of hard adventuring. Well thought out and defended by same nasty creatures and encounters… some of the creatures are new and detailed further on. I won’t spoil it for you.
And speaking of creatures… there are four appendices: #1 being 13 “new” monsters (many are old AD&D monsters retooled for OSRIC, but some are new… or new to me), #2 has three new magic items geared toward illusionists, and #3 has 9 pregenerated PCs for that pick up game that can happen at any time. #4 is all the maps.
Strengths: HoD is well thought out. You can tell it was written by someone who knows what the hell an AD&D mini-campaign area is supposed to look like. The dungeons are nasty and hold a variety of creatures and encounters arrayed in a manner to keep the party on its toes. Where Axes gets creative, he gets highly creative. Any DM can read this in two hours and be ready to go because everything is well explained.
Weaknesses: mainly along production lines. Everything about the production of this module is good, but could have easily been better. The art by Axe ranges from “boss” to “meh.”
Cartography does a weird thing: some of the map legends don’t have dungeon scale on them. Looking at which ones, I’m guessing that Sean and/or Scot dropped the scale on the more crowded legends do to layout reasons. Maybe they just said “to hell with it; everyone knows it’s 10ft per square.”
The surrounding area map has neither scale nor hexes, so who knows how big the area is or how long it would really take to get from one encounter to another. You signed that one, Sean, so that’s on you.
Of the nine pregens, eight are 3rd level, with the last one a dual class 2/2 MU-T. That’s sort of weird. I noticed Axe used my PC Sogathan the cleric from his test play of Seacliffs of Despair years ago. My attorney will be in touch.
Denny Crane!!!
Of the three new magic items, descriptions of the last two state that a creator must be at least a 12th level illusionists, while the first one says nothing about item creation.
There’s other minor, nit picky crap that’s not worth mentioning. Hoard of Delusion could have used another editing and layout pass, but very often these things are finished when the designers simply get tired of fooling with it.
Doktor Rotwang rates: 3.75 out of 5.