First Impressions - "Well of Frogs" and "In the Shadow of the City-God" [OSR]

Two OSR modules from EMDT

I picked up several zines published by EMDT, the First Hungarian D20 Society recently. It took about ten days for the order to arrive in the UK from Hungary, and they were very well packaged. The older books received PDFs straight away, but the newer ones (those less than 6 months old) will get their PDFs at 6 months. That's the way the publisher rolls (I guess to encourage hardcopy sales).

These are two OSR modules. One is labelled as Swords & Wizardry compatible, but you should have no issues using any of these with any older D&D ruleset. I suspect they'd also be a breeze to run with D&D 5e if that's how you roll. I think I'd just use Old-School Essentials, but Blueholme or Swords & Wizardry would work too. The style is reminiscent of that period before AD&D 2nd Edition when you ran any D&D module from any edition with whatever rules that you had to hand.

Both of the modules were written by Istvan Boldog-Bernad, and translated and published by Gabor Lux. They're A5 zines, B&W printing, clean layout and 30 pages of content (including inside covers); both come with a separate map printed at A3. This is basic presentation but very readable and clear. There's a mix of art; including some sourced from 'Dead Victorians' and 'Robot Overlords'.

The Well of Frogs is the one that caught my attention most. An introductory adventure set in Cassidium, a city which has fallen from its previous splendour. There's an Italian feel to this and the adventure all takes place around the Piazza dei Rospi, a city district that surrounds the well the book is named after. The piazza has seen better times and many of the former palaces and public buildings are decayed and partly abandoned, mostly inhabited by stray cats. There are two Guilds vying for control of the area, one of which (the Barber's Guild) is especially cut-throat. There are two solid hooks to enter the dungeons below the well (robbery or rescuing a child), plus a more open sandbox-like one. The table of rumours gives plenty of hinted background and nudges and the random encounters flavourful. The key locations around the piazza are described.

If everything goes as it should, the players will find their characters entering the Well of Frogs, which is a 29 room dungeon below the city. The introductory text explains that it's unlikely that the party can take hirelings on this adventure (probably because of the way it develops and the attention that a large, heavily armed party would garner) so recommends giving each player two characters. The well is varied, multi-level and dangerous. I think it's likely to kill first level characters whose players don't have their wits about them. The cartography is interesting; the dungeon is presented in the form of a side view. The A3 map has a GM side showing the Well of Frogs, including the random encounters table, and a player side showing the piazza above (for the early stages of the adventure).

Having read this through, I was itching to pick up my copy of OSE and take a party down it. It gave me the GM-tingles, and I think I will try to get this to the table. I like the feel of the city-setting with factions, interesting locations and the potential for adventure for loot or heroism.

In the Shadow of the City-God is a different beast. This is more of a sandbox campaign, a larger scale thing than the Well of Frogs. Again, there's an Italian feel. The City of Mur makes its money from tear salt, a magical liquid that can heal and protect. The two springs that the tear salt comes from are controlled by rival families; the Falconi and the Capullo. The city's god, Muri, forbids open conflict as all must labour for the good of the City (the god's physical embodiment), but there are cloak-and-dagger intrigues and low level violence. It's a dangerous thing to be obvious, as troublemakers and criminals can be interred within the City's walls to face judgement. Citizens are likewise interred when they die, but at least they aren't alive when they're walled in. The city does have a problem with undead.

Tension between the factions is high as the scenario opens, and there are hidden aspects that make the situation more dangerous for the survival of the city than is immediately obvious. The characters will only have a number of days before disaster is upon them. There's a main hook (find a kidnapped noble) and some alternatives in case that doesn't engage your player's imaginations. The module has background on the city, the factions and key players. There's a random encounter table for day and night, and the key locations are described. This is very much a sandbox with levers to pull. The levers are likely to lead to one of three dungeons described in the text. Two of them have 17 locations (and very different feels) and they're illustrated with side-on maps (takes me back to reading Holmes Basic D&D for the first time). The third dungeon is a bit shorter and more mythical. There's also a location outside the City to explore, the Valley of the Skull which contains ruins of the Circus Corvallis, built by the long dead Emperor Nerbanus. 

In the Shadow of the City-God feels perfect for a short campaign which will come to a dramatic climax should the characters fail to stop the plots that are going on. This will need more work than The Well of Frogs to run, but should pay off more. I'd be interested in exploring this further, but it doesn't call to me quite as much as the first zine I read.

I'd recommend both these books.

23 July 2023