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Brother Ptolemy & The Hidden Kingdom (4E D&D Adventure)
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$2.99 $1.00 |
| Average Rating:4.5 / 5 |
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I was sent a copy of this product to review for Gnome Stew. You can read the full review here:
http://www.gnomestew.com/spotlight/spotlight-review-the-
hidden-kingdom
Overall I like this product. It is original, intriguing, and has a great deal of potential as an addition to any 4e campaign.
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My overall impression is vaguely positive. If you are an avid consumer of all things related to D&D, then by all means, grab the book, you'll love it. If, like me, you're far more accustomed to traditional modules and adventures, grab it, skip to chapter 4, and start reading there. Ignore about half of the art; the thing is actually over-populated with pictures which actually detract from how I was imagining the setting as I read through. If you are extremely nitpicky about writing style, I might suggest you go read some classic literature and stay away from D&D in general.
Jenny Snyder
Level 30 Yinzer
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I recently was in contact with Dr. Jonathan Jacobs of Nevermet Press, and received a review copy of Nevermet's latest endeavor, Brother Ptolemy & The Hidden Kingdom.
The book is a 4e "Adventure Setting", which means that while it does have an adventure, that's only a small part of this book in comparison. It's a really cool concept, so let's see how it works!
Chapter one opens with a history of who Brother Ptolemy and the Hidden Kingdom are, a group of monks who have found the secret to undeath. The chapter gives information on the group's goals and organization. The group often recruits the homeless and forgotten, considering no one will miss them once they're gone. They also hide their undead faces behind masks as part of their garb.
The chapter includes stat blocks for Ptolemy and his monks. What impressed me most was that there are seven different stat blocks for the monks, not including Ptolemy. And they're different, unique monsters, of mid-heroic tier. It would be pretty easy to begin slipping this group into your campaign from the beginning, reaching a boiling point around level six in your campaign.
Chapter two introduces a new disease, the Red Harvest, a fairly brutal 9th Level disease which has the opportunity to permenantly change a character into a "plague stalker", driven mad with the desire for blood.
The disease even effects plants, turning all into a deep rust color. Soon the land looks bathed in blood, not the type of place you want to visit on vacation.
The plague stalker template itself can be truly terrifying, as entire villages will be overrun with the disease and turn into a zombie-like horde. Not only are the villagers themselves overtaken, but animals as well. There are some really terrifying ideas presented, which could end up becoming quite a plague (no pun intended) on your players.
Chapter three presents the City-State of Corwyn, a sprawling city on the banks of a river, which could really be placed in any fantasy world. The chapter talks about the Red Monks of the Hidden Kingdom rescuing the city from almost certain doom when the Red Harvest overtook the lands many years ago, putting the city in the monk's debt. The monks now walk freely in the streets, and the townspeople are blissfully unaware of the sinister secrets behind the brotherhood of monks.
Chapter four is the adventure proper, with the heroes finding themselves at odds with the Hidden Kingdom. It's designed for 5th level heroes, and deals with the resurgence of the Red Harvest. There are quite a few NPCs introduced throughout, and a lot of opportunity for roleplaying. There's a really large chunk of the section designed purely for information gathering and roleplaying, which I like a lot. Eventually, however, the Red Harvest comes calling, and the plagued walk the streets, giving the players a run for their money, until they must go to the Von Brandt manor to face the leaders of the Hidden Kingdom in their base of operations. The game doesn't end there, but in the eventual trial of the monks, which is pretty cool to read about. I've wanted to run a trial in a game for a long time now, and this shows me how to do it.
Chapter five has magical items, including my favorite, the Beggar's Coin, which takes the hunger out of a hungry man by simply pressing it into their hand, but only if you have less than 5gp on you.
Finally, Chapter six presents new feats and rituals for the members of the Hidden Kingdom to perform, which are good, solid new rules.
The Appendix in the back has some great adventuring hooks for getting your players involved in the intrigue behind it all as well.
In all, at 110 pages, this is a fantastic book for anyone looking for some awesome and creepy new adversaries in their 4e D&D game. Definitely check it out.
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I recently got a hold of “Brother Ptolemy & The Hidden Kingdom” by Nevermet Press. This third party publisher is dedicated to building a better gaming community and this is one of their first big forays into publishing adventures for 4e D&D.
I very much enjoyed the introduction section of the book. It reminded me somewhat of the pyramid scheme episode of the TV series `Angel`, where Harmony, the vamp valley girl betrays Angel and his gang to a bunch of biters being led by a Draculean motivational speaker. Though i will say, the introduction isn’t nearly as campy as that episode of Angel (or Angel at all).
The Red Harvest is a great story element. I think it really does what it should: scare people. I would be really scared, as a player, if I faced potential exposure to that disease. Near the middle, and even towards the end of the adventure, I began having flashbacks to my time playing Resident Evil, especially at the Manor. Very powerful imagery going on here.
All of the Items presented in this book really help to add to the theme presented. I particularly liked the idea of the Golden Oak Mask, which I could see as being very useful for some characters even outside of the Adventure. I think the Bone Embalming Dagger is dangerously close to being broken, but walks that line between awesome and too awesome very well.
As a whole, and in general, I would say that the Adventure is extremely well written and is very well planned. It flows very well as an adventure and combines several really interesting elements. I like that it contains multiple small side quests that could be truly entertaining to play out. The NPC’s are all very well constructed and I found their back-stores to be very well laid out. I really liked the final part of the adventure. It makes for a VERY interesting conclusion to the campaign, if the player’s actually let it happen (not going to give away any spoilers here…).
The bones I have to pick are mainly small and mechanical. Some of the monsters seem to be a bit too powerful, or have too many powers. I also wasn’t terribly fond of the Feats section. Some of the feats presented here I feel are a bit off. They seem more like disadvantages to me than feats really. When you consider that the primary means of attaining these feats is through the use of a ritual, they really aren’t like feats at all. The organization for which I would have liked to have had Feats, Soul’s End, was not very well represented in the Feats Section. The familiar feats I found to be interesting though. They sound like they would give some good flavor to a character.
Some of the DC’s seem to be a bit off in places. For example, the DC for knowing that Brother Ptolemy is dead is only a 10 – this is below even common knowledge for Heroic Tier players, but that is something that can easily be worked around. That being said, some of the monsters are simply brutal. Ptolemy himself seems like a very well built, monster (as in hard) NPC. I would love to throw a group of the Red Monks at my players and see how they stand up to that encounter.
In conclusion, I think Nevermet Press really came through on this one. This is a story heavy adventure which relies less on the big picture and more on small relationships and small scale goings on in a little corner of the world. It feels like it could fit easily into any campaign setting, which makes it a very strong BUY recommendation if you are building your own setting, like I am, and will need an adventure to keep your party entertained while you are busy world building. Although the book had a few typos and some of the mechanics weren’t perfect, I definitely would rate this as a first class adventure for 4e D&D which easily rivals any of the material put out by Wizards of the Coast; i definitely would rather have bought this than the 'Slaying Stone' which I picked up a few months back. I think this is really a sign that even under the GSL, 3rd Party Publishers can still successfully write and release good material for 4e D&D.
Not only is the adventure really good; the people that made it are pretty generous. This month, Nevermet Press is holding a contest for the release of "Brother Ptolemny & The Hidden Kingdom". You could win yourself a free ebook copy of the module just by taking a picture. Check out the full details of the contest at their website: http://nevermetpress.com/thk-out.
-Shinobicow
thedumpstat.blogspot.com
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