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Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net
ROGUE FEED This 24-page module succeeds, in my opinion, not because it so closely
mimics the look of the TSR modules of old (right down to the cover
REVIEW: The Fane of Poisoned artwork by Peter Mullen, everyone’s favorite Erol Otus stand-in), but
because it possesses that elusive quality of “cleverness.” The author takes
Prophecies a somewhat hackneyed premise — investigate weird goings-on at an
AUG 04, 2009 01:33P.M. ancient temple — and spins it into an imaginative site-based adventure
that’s easily usable in any campaign — not high art by any means but still
something well worth celebrating.
The Fane of Poisoned Prophecies takes place within a Sun Temple that
houses an oracle whose prophecies are sought out near and far. When
her oracular powers seemingly start to fail, providing false
pronouncements to those who seek them, it arouses suspicion and the
player characters set out to investigate. Once at the Sun Temple, the
characters must contend with its sacred guardians, as well as
otherworldly invaders who’ve taken over the Temple and are the cause
for the oracle’s feigned prophecies. In the process, they discover the true
purpose of the Temple and the secret that lies hidden within its walls.
This adventure module uses the AD&D 1e rules and proudly states that
fact on the cover. Why it didn’t use OSRIC I cannot say. It’s intended for
a party of 4th-6th level characters and should definitely prove a
challenge. Many of the monsters it uses are from later AD&D books, like
I’m pretty well known as a guy who would like to see the old school the Fiend Folio and Monster Manual II, which gives the whole thing a
renaissance do more than endlessly rehash Keep on the Borderlands and slightly “weird” quality vaguely reminiscent of The Forgotten Temple of
ape TSR’s trade dress circa 1978. While I’m quite happy to use cloned Tharizdun, although not quite as intense, perhaps because the writing is
rules, I’m far more reluctant to use cloned adventures, which is what I much more workmanlike than was Gygax’s. The interior artwork by
fear a great many recent old school adventures amount to. I’m not wholly Jason Braun and Andy Taylor varies in quality, with the best pieces being
opposed to clever reworkings of module staples, of course, but the those of Taylor, an artist whose work has, I think, improved considerably
operative word is “clever,” which is a rarity in any age but particularly so over the last year and whose style is wholly his own rather than being
in an age when the esthetic and creative choices of the past are treated as imitative of any of TSR’s stable from the Golden Age.
normative rather than merely one possible approach among many.
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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net 5 August 2009
school scene could use a few more of them nowadays. ROGUE FEED
Still, press releases like this all raise my skepticism. Nowadays, it’s not
uncommon to hear that a product in this industry has sold out before
release, but, without solid figures on how many copies have been sold,
what does it all mean? Erik Mona is quoted as saying, “To sell out a
hugely ambitious print run before the release date just goes to show what
an immense audience this game will enjoy in the years to come.” How
many books are in “a hugely ambitious print run?” Is it 10,000 copies?
More? I doubt we’ll ever really know and, on some level, I’m not sure it
matters. So long as it’s enough to make Paizo some money and keep
Pathfinder profitable, the numbers are probably immaterial. I just wish
more gaming companies were more forthcoming with sales figures, since
they’d go a long way toward putting the current state of the hobby in
context, particularly to those of us who remember its faddishness — and
ridiculous sales figures — from the 1980s.
In any case, my congratulations to the Paizo crew. However you slice it,
this is good news for them and I wish them every success in the world.