Saturday 9 July 2011

Tavern by the Sea Review

Sometimes an adventure doesn't have to involve delving into dungeons dark and deep or traversing miles of hostile land and Ken St Andre sets out to prove that.

This is another is a series of revamped solitaire adventures from the pen of the Trollgod, this time an extension of an adventure that appeared in a Sorcerer's Apprentice Magazine #2 (cheers, Soren) under the original name The Seven Ayes.

The adventure is set solely in the Seven Ayes Tavern, a wretched hive of scum and villainy owned by a retired pirate, who has the irritating policy of making you leave all weapons except your dagger at the door. However, after entering you will soon be cozying up to a goblin/kobold hybrid, drinking out of horns and battling a pirate vampire.

Read more after the jump.

For its brevity (52 paragraphs) Tavern by the Sea packs a lot in one little package, making it one that you'll likely come back to multiple times. In fact, some of the endings are the best things about this adventure, including one where you indefinitely become an oarsman for a pirate (if you're unlucky you may not be able to ever escape this grubby fate).

The artwork by David Ullery is, as usual, really good and I think that the cover is especially hilarious.

As an extra piece of coolness the solo includes a mini GM adventure called Frargg: The Pirate Nest, which is essentially a series of combat encounters related to the solo adventure that the GM must improvise around. I haven't tried this, but I'm sure I will at some time.

Tavern by the Sea is a great little adventure that you can keep coming back to and I highly recommend it.

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