Review 43 - Frog Demon Temple
No, you're not experiencing deja vu-- I'm just reviewing another adventure about a temple with frogs in it. This is one of the adventure sites featured in the excellent What Ho, Frog Demons! supplement by Chris Kutalik and Luka Rejec.
This book is part of a quartet of supplements set in the Hill Cantons, a sort of weird fantasy eastern Europe flavored sword and sorcery setting. Seeing as how there were many thinly veiled and tongue-in-cheek references to Elric of Melniboné, this felt like the perfect setting in which to run a Black Sword Hack game.
Getting it to the Table
These supplements were originally written for Labyrinth Lord, which is basically B/X, which means that the conversion process is relatively simple for a game like Black Sword Hack-- any time there are fewer details in the final stat block, it's a breeze.
One thing that I did need to do ahead of running the adventure was to generate some frog demons-- they appear several times in the both the random encounter tables and in keyed encounters, but the stat blocks are frustratingly "half" complete, because each demon is intended to have unique special abilities that are derived from a series of tables in one of the book's appendices.
Apart from that, we are presented with a pretty neat little dungeon with lots of weird stuff that combines snarky humor with an obvious love of the sword and sorcery source material that it pays homage to. It begins with the encounter tables that the GM will need to reference regularly as the exploration of the dungeon commences, and the entries range from gross and inconvenient to downright deadly. There are a fair number of potential social encounters too, which is always a point in an adventure's favor.
Next we are given the map of the dungeon, followed immediately by the area keys, and despite a little bit of verbosity, the keys are pretty efficient and useful in that they give you all the information you need where you need it. I am also willing to forgive the wordiness because there is so much of the author's sense of humor carried through the text. I've heard some folks call this presence of the authorial voice distracting, but honestly I find it refreshing compared to the very dry tone that you find in some adventures, and you really get the sense that this is someone who is describing the game that they wrote and really enjoys it.
What Worked?
- No-nonsense dungeon full of nonsense. Overall this was a very small dungeon, which could easily be completed in a single session. It would be ideal for transplanting into a different campaign if a lot of the connections to other parts of the Hill Cantons are removed; on the other hand, reading this will make you really want to run something in the Hill Cantons. There is so much strange stuff that has links to the city of Marlinko and the Slumbering Ursine Dunes and all of the weird shit that you run into in these books that it really helps this adventure feel alive.
- More flavor than you can shake a stick at. The whole dungeon takes up about 12 pages in the book, but there are so many great little easter eggs and things that could be borrowed for others games, just reveling in the lack of context. Special mention goes to "d10 Bestsellers of Hot Hell", which are the topic of discussion by two frog demons in a salon. Notable titles include "Applied Hedonics: Are You Pleasuring Yourself Enough at the Expense of Others?" and "The Five People You Meet in the Sun Lord's Orb"
What Didn't Work?
- Small space, may feel crowded. Such a limited area can make it difficult for a GM to justify the results of a random encounter table on the fly-- there is a potential to meet 12 dilettante cultists hard at work re-dirtying the tunnels, and if you had just come that way (there are next to no looping pathways in here), it would seem odd that you hadn't seen them prior to that encounter.
- Some people don't like humor I guess? I'm not one of those people.
Final Thoughts
This had a great "classic dungeon" feel with traps and hazards, while also introducing some weirdness and some unusual traps and challenges, like the valuable golden idol enchanted with a spell that "protects it from lassoes, nets, and other capture by inanimate objects (the object humorously slips itself off after very obviously striking home)". I think that it would shine best in a game that has a distinct level of humor and irreverence, so if that isn't your cup of tea then you probably would not enjoy the Hill Cantons books.
You can get What Ho, Frog Demons! in PDF or POD form at DriveThruRPG. Thanks for reading!