vsD Adventure Review: Shadows of the Northern Woods

In my previous post, I was singing the praise of the classic Iron Crown Enterprises scenario structure, and since Shadows of the Northern Woods, the mini-campaign included in the corebook of Against the Darkmaster, follows similar design principles, I'll just jeep on singing.

Shadows of the Northern Woods (SotNW) is a joy to read. It hits exactly my sweet spot between creating a sandbox environment, but also giving lots of support for the three interconnected scenarios provided (much more support than the old MERP modules usually offered). More importantly, it really makes the environment come alive; it's a small setting, basically a village and the surrounding wilderness, but it's brimming with NPCs, factions, unique monsters, history and current events.

The campaign first provides the backstory of the Northern Woods and the village of Willow Lake, Silmarillion style. Big stuff has happened here, armies clashed, great spells were woven and greater tragedies suffered. These days, only age-old ruins and haunting ghosts speak of this past (though characters who succeed at their Songs&Tales rolls will know one thing or the other). The adventure does a good job at providing a sense of deep history while keeping the greater picture vague. Sometimes, that doesn't quite work to the advantage of the adventure - especially in the final act, it feels like the GM needs to nail down a little more background to allow the players to arrive at a satisfying conclusion - but in general, Shadows of the Northern Woods is evocative of the 80s fantasy source material it draws from in all the best ways. It's deeply atmospheric, and its fantasy tropes have both feet planted firmly in rich mythological soil.

I'm getting into mildly spoilery territory now - if you're a player, the following might give you some clues you're better off without ...

SotNW comes with three scenarios which are each quite distinct in tone, even though they share the same set of locations and NPCs and will probably blend into each other at most tables. The first one, The Beast of Willow Lake, is a small investigation with some whimsical overtones; it feels very much like the Hobbit Tolkien, with Trolls arguing about how to prepare dwarf, but also some hints of a deeper darkness.

The Winds of War, then, is a Seven Samurai-type scenario where the Player Characters need to defend the village of Willow Lake against a small army, while at the same time investigating the root cause of what's going on. It uses vsD's Warfare rules and provides some good examples for how the PCs can turn the tide. Winds of War feels like a microcosm of the battles of the Lord of the Rings; it's all very local and small scale, but you will find hints of the siege of Helms Deep, Rohan coming to the help of Gondor and even of the Oathbreakers. It's not derivative, but Winds of War knows the "War Tropes" of epic fantasy and makes excellent use of them. It's also the scenario that makes the fullest use of the setting elements presented in SotNW, and I can easily see it taking four or five sessions to finish - there's just so much places and people for the PCs to interact with.

The final adventure, Island in the Mist, feels more like an epilogue that digs deep into the tragic backstory, an expedition into a gloomy otherworld. It's a great scenario, as well, but it suffers a little from the lack of a wll-defined larger setting; there's a suggestion of how the characters might find a very satisfying, non-violent solution for it, but that is basically dependent on a wider context that is simply not there. Basically, this is where you see the seams that are unavoidable when you have a scenario that engages with some deep history, but still needs to slot into a vaguely defined, implied setting.

The general organizsation of the material is very good - not perfect, since there's a few a few pieces of information you'll have to hunt through the text (I found it hard to figure out when and under which circumstances exactly Wulfric became Thane of Willow Lake until I'd read the whole adventure), but generally, the clear separation into places, NPCs and hazards is really neat. I especially like that each NPC comes not only with an explicitly stated main goal, but also with information about what will happen if they succeed. Another small but helpful thing: Elements of the surroundings the GM should take note of (like poisonous vines) are printed in bold - actually, if you're playing Fate, these would be your location aspects.

What makes SotNW truly great, however, is the sheer multitude of possible events to interact with - and they're all connected to the core story and backstory in one way or the other, so nothing feels random here. There's some nice twists, as well, but the adventure doesn't depend on them, which is great as well: So even if the PCs spot the main bad guy within five minutes of play (which is highly unlikely, but still ...), walk up to him and dispatch of him, there's more than enough adventure left for them; gears are in motion, things are happening, and the characters will have to react. Whatever they do, they've stumbled into some serious sh** here, and it won't be over for them until it's over.

If I'd have to point out problems, I can think of two: One, all three scenarios practially need to happen over the course of ten days (you probably could have the triggering events of Island of the Mist occur a few weeks later, but it would be a stretch), and the characters are supposed to advance several levels to meet the challenges of the third. While this is certainly possible, given the wealth of story that can happen in Winds of War, this speed of character development still might beggar credibility ... also, there's one little piece of backstory that I really don't care for (and that is, luckily, easily changed): Why does warrior-queen Blaithneid have to seduce the evil general before annihilating his troops? Really, there's no good reason, and it's such a tired cliché ...

Final verdict: SotNW is a great example of the classic, open-ended ICE sandbox module, augmented with some additional guidance. I haven't been itching to run something this much in a long time.

You can get SotNW not only as part of the core rules, but also separately as PDF. If you're playing Rolemaster or HARP (or even MERP), it should be easily adapted, and if you're into classic Tolkienesque fantasy roleplaying at all, you should just get it. It's only 2,99$!