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[PFRPG] Purple Mountain I: Temple of the Locust Lord $4.00
Average Rating:4.1 / 5
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[PFRPG] Purple Mountain I: Temple of the Locust Lord
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[PFRPG] Purple Mountain I: Temple of the Locust Lord
Publisher: Purple Duck Games
by Dark M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 11/30/2011 15:29:02

Purple Mountain: Temple of the Locust Lord by Purple Duck Games

This product is 30 pages long. It starts with a cover, map, and credits. (3 pages)

Introduction (2 pages) Here it talks about the Megadungeon and this level of the dungeon. While this is the first level of a much great dungeon complex it can be very easily played alone. In fact the only way down lower in the dungeon is not very obvious and something a GM could easily change and use as a stand alone. It gives some plot hooks, standard dungeon features like light sources, doors etc, and ends with a random encounter page.

The Temple of the Locust Lord (10 pages) There is 14 rooms in this level of the dungeon with 8 combat encounters, 2 traps and well I won't ruin the surprise on the final obstacle in the dungeon. I liked the playtest notes in this section talking about some of the issues with some of the rooms and what might be hard and why. Plus one about how the playtest group and how the GM tweaked the dungeon due to their actions.

Monsters(6 ½ pages) This section has 11 full stat blocks of creatures in the adventure.

Extra's (4 pages) Here is new Cavalier order, a few feats, magic items and spells. As well as new vermin mounts and a new demon lord.

Treasure and XP (1 page) This section list all the monsters in each of the rooms and list their xp, as well as another table listing all the treasure in all the rooms.

It ends with a OGL, ads and how to write for PDG. (3 ½ pages)

Closing thoughts. The art work is black and white, it ranges from fair to pretty good. Editing is pretty good, layout on the other hand could use some work. A couple of the issues I had with the layout. Right in the middle of the dungeon there is two full pages of art, they would have worked better as chapter headers. Just seemed a odd place to put both of them. I liked how the dungeon uses monsters that PC's normally rarely face and it has a nice theme. I don't have part two yet, but the only way down as written would be very easily missed by PC's perhaps in part two they will address this possible problem.

I had one final issues with the product and one comment. The comment is there is a random table for things that can happen in one of the rooms. I would have liked to have seen that have at least twice the number of options than it did have. My final problem is the final treasure room is left blank. I get the reasoning as it is explained but I would have still liked a sample treasure list of what the author thought worked myself. All and all I liked it but it does have a couple of rough spots. So what's my rating? I am going to give this one a 4 star review.

Trust me, I'm a Succubus.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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[PFRPG] Purple Mountain I: Temple of the Locust Lord
Publisher: Purple Duck Games
by Billiam B. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 11/27/2011 08:01:45

This is a really well presented module. Although it represents one level of the Purple Mountain megadungeon, it could also be played individually in a low level campaign for pathfinder / DnD3.5 – but could easily be adapted by a confident DM to most systems, since there’s a focus on environment and some NPC motivation/tactics - enough "meat" for any system.

Don’t be fooled any negative associations with the term “Megadungeon” – the encounters follow logically, the adversaries are consistent with a dungeon population and themes, there’s also few nods to dungeon ecology.

The dungeon level has a traditional gaming feel, but the descriptions are modern and slick.

Purple Mountain 1 ‘Locust Lord has inherited from classic dungeoneering style the very best elements of play and plot by the way it is guided by the physical environment of the dungeon - which was the original purpose of a original D&D dungeon - as opposed to the war gaming open field of battle.

The DM is given plenty of “what if/then” guidance if the players are struggling or alternative approaches to reaching the end points of the plot.

Appendices (inc. Monster stats) and inset tip boxes make this scenario very easy on the eye and implies minimal preparatory work on behalf of the DM.

I’m especially excited about this product because it can be played using it’s sister product – a gorgeous and massive battle-map by CSP (briefly looked in my post here). I’m a sucker for glossy play aids.

As I type this, the product is at an absolutely bargain price for what you get. Disgustingly cheap! If you don’t buy this product now, definitely keep an eye out for deeper levels in the Purple Mountain. Again – this is playable as a single dungeon in its own right, the fact that it is part of a series of a huge sprawling megadungeon structure is a plus.

Billiam B http://bit.ly/rpgblog



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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[PFRPG] Purple Mountain I: Temple of the Locust Lord
Publisher: Purple Duck Games
by Thilo G. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 11/18/2011 05:44:07

This first installment of Purple Duck's Purple Mountain dungeon is 30 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1.5 pages SRD and 1 page advertisement, leaving 25.5 pages of content for the first level of the dungeon.

Purple Mountain is an old-school, deadly dungeon crawl in the tradition of e.g. Rappan Athuk in mentality and atmosphere. The first level of the dungeon can easily be cut off from the rest, though, making for a valid and nest stand-alone dungeon for 1st level characters, who will have to test their mettle in a difficult, although not FGG-difficult module. That being said, the following review contains SPOILERS, potential players might want to jump to the conclusion.

Still here?

All right.

The temple of the locust lord is actually the 14-room fortress of mites under the command of a fledgling aasimar lesser worm-that-walks and makes thus for a nice diversion from the bland "Orcs + ogre"-first level trope and comes with a neat overview map. Essentially, the PCs can waltz into the fortress (though stealth is another option - the mite guards are notoriously bad) and infiltrate the fortress. In fact, this approach (as well as exploration) is encouraged, as the mites otherwise will make the final confrontation a rather deadly experience. It should be noted that rather intelligently (or deviously) placed blade traps also feature in this dungeon as well as the elite of the mite fighters - cavaliers that ride of scorpion-mounts. Flash beetles also are a part of the menagerie of the squirming pets of the dread cult. Who is by now reminded of the dread Kyuss-cult from the Age of Worms should know - yeah, the opposition is disturbing in the same (albeit level-induced, petty) manner - the dread cult of the vermin lord enjoys sacrificing foes by using them as incubators for flesh-eating vermin, which cruelly will erupt from those infected, potentially even granting morale bonuses to the vile foes. It should also be noted that magical water pools can be found (with unpredictable results, of course) as well as treasure fitting for a prolonged stay far away from the sun. Oh, by the way: A rather deadly, bladed mechanism makes entering level 2 rather tricky, as the PCs essentially have to brave a huge waste-disposal trap.

After the dungeon itself, we get the statistics of the foes (including the uncommon corpse-puppeteering demon Vermlek and the egg-implanting Throaches), a chart of the magic items that can be found as well as even more content: 3 new feats are presented, wto of which are teamwork feats and one providing rules for being an obedient servant to a demonic entity. The latter feat can easily expanded and I look forward to seeing more dread idols beyond the Locust Lord, who also gets a full write up. Three low-level spells are also provided along a new cavalier order employed by the mites. While the order's rather predictable abilities didn't impress me that much, I really liked the 6 different vermin-mounts stats provided, ranging from a giant black widow to cave scorpions.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are good, I only noticed some very minor glitches and not much of them. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly two-column standard and the pdf comes in B/w/purple, as is the tradition with most PDG-pdfs. The artworks, especially for the low price, are nice and the same goes for the map. I really liked this challenging, short dungeon-crawl and look forward to what we'll see next in Purple Mountain. However, I do have some minor gripes as well: I would have really liked for a number-less version of the dungeon map to print out and show to my players, as some of the rooms are a bit complex and having a map to show off helps immensely when running the encounter. While the additional material is mostly awesome (especially the 3 feats), the spells fell a bit behind them in my opinion and I would have loved e.g. some magical larvae as items (think potions of the nastier kind) or more environmental complications with creepy crawlies. As written, we get an affordable, well-crafted old-schoolish dungeon with a neat, non-standard villain that is slightly held back from being truly awesome. Thus, my final verdict will be 4 stars - a neat foray, easily adaptable and thematically consistent.

Endzeitgeist out.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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