Review 24: Demon Driven to the Maw
What's more fun than going to a party in a castle? A party in a castle hosted by blood-drinking creatures ready to sacrifice every attendee for their dark ends, of course! Next on my list is "Demon Driven to the Maw", written by Brad Kerr for Cairn. I ran it with Cairn!
The general premise of this adventure is a situation that looks normal, but quickly spirals into horror, carnage, and chaos. Fun! A thief known as Jougal is said to have stolen a valuable artifact and has taken refuge in a castle-- the PCs can either be bounty hunters pursuing him, allies making a rendezvous with him, or opportunistic thieves hoping to get the artifact for themselves.
Getting it to the Table
I was quite happy with how the details of the adventure are presented to the prospective GM. As I just mentioned, there is a handy page right at the beginning that explains the current situation and gives examples of how the PCs might be involved. Next is a brief outline of how the adventure is meant to progress-- the first half is intended to be mostly social interaction and investigation as the PCs discreetly search for Jougal, and the second half is when the vampiric, deer-hoofed baobhan sith reveal their true nature and begin slaughtering the guests with the help of a gaggle of red caps (the NIGHTMARE PHASE).
After a two-page spread setting the tone for the adventure, we get a nice brief dramatis personae of the notable NPCs and a bestiary giving further detail for the baobhan sith and the red caps. The NPCs are fantastic, and give the GM plenty of opportunities for entertaining interactions before things pop off.
Next we've got the area key, which is helpfully interspersed with the relevant sections of the map, which removes the need to flip back to the main map while you're running the adventure. Everything here is presented in an efficient manner without a bunch of fluff text, and all of it gives you plenty of flavorful details about how NPCs will behave, along with some hints that things aren't as they should be, even before the timer runs out on the transition to the NIGHTMARE PHASE (Brad's capitalization).
The adventure concludes with a quartet of tables to help flesh out the party and the NIGHTMARE PHASE with random villagers, small talk, baobhan sith, and terrible events. All in all, there is quite a bit of content in here for a 15 page adventure, and players that thrive on social interaction in games will have a fun time!
What Worked?
- Red caps! As players move throughout the castle, there is a mechanic for the GM to determine if a red cap starts following them. Only the PCs who are being followed can see them, and once they outnumber their targets, they attack. I got to have some fun describing the ugly little dudes hiding and following the party and the fact that none of the other guests could see them.
- Weird shit under the surface! Once the PCs start exploring the parts of the castle that aren't the main party zone, weird things start to show up quickly. Human corpses butchered in the pantry, deer-hoofed vampire orgies, and a portal to Hell in the basement are just a few of the neat things that might give hints to the players that not all is as it seems.
- Relevant mini-maps, detail where it's needed. Another fine example of giving the GM exactly what is needed to run the adventure without having to flip around to other pages all the time.
What Didn't Work?
- Set in real history? The adventure is described as being "set in 16th century Scotland", but to be perfectly honest there wasn't too much that made that relevant apart from some NPC names and gossip. That's a very little nit that I wanted to pick just so that I would have an entry for this section.
Final Thoughts
I ran this as a one-shot while I was still getting the hang of Cairn as a system, and it was a nice change of pace from the usual dungeon crawls that I've been running a lot of. Parties are not my strong suit (either in adventure games or in real life!), but the detail that was included here for the NPCs personalities was very helpful in giving me something to work with. My players decided to split up to search the party, allowing for a bunch of fun interactions and some extra chaos once things started to go all murdery.
You can get Demon Driven to the Maw on Brad Kerr's itch page. Thanks for reading!