Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique a wide range of modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath.

The first thing a bunch of people asked me when I put up my review of Secret of the Black Crag was “Have you read Black Wyrm of Brandonsford?” So, I added it to my list, a much less ambitious module and much more a one-man show. It’s a 17 page module with a town, a wilderness and a dungeon, with art, maps and words by Chance Dudinak.

The vibes here are off the impeccably fairytale variety, a pleasant surprise after the more vanilla fantasy of Black Crag. There are dwarves, curses, witches in cottages. It reminds me a lot of the same vibes Curse of the Ganshoggr evokes, but in a traditional faux-British folktale way. The opening poem (it’s on the cover!) sets a great scene for this vibe, but I can see fans of the horror in modern elfgames bouncing off the lighthearted tone.

The town of Brandonsford is nine characters and two secrets, and damned if it isn’t ten times more compelling than the pirate city in Black Crag. What‘a perfection here is the density of connections, which both give you hooks within and outside the town, but also provide the illusion of a lot more depth than is actually there. The characters are written like the locations: 3 bullets or bust, terse as a cowboy with no tongue. The secrets are the same. This town is fire, y’all. While it doesn’t have the real depth of something complex like my own Hiss, could be that the implied depth here is as good or better when the trade-offs in page count and utility are taken into account.

When we get to the woods, it stays strong, with a random encounter table where almost every entry either bullies vibes or tires into a major thread. The wolves, stirges and dryad are the exceptions: The network density is so great at this point it’s a hollow criticism, but I’d have preferred they be tied to something. And the wolves still are; rolling this encounter is a reward, if you bought a certain product from a certain townsperson. The locations here are straight out of fairy tales: A mild-mannered witch, a giant, a fairy bargain, a dragon’s lair and the home of seven dwarves. They’re all worth the time you spend there, giving either a tool to achieve your goal or information to guide you.

There’s a misstep here, though, which is the scale and encounter rate. It’s a small map, only between 4 and 6 miles across (hard to be specific as I don’t have a print copy, and it uses an inches to miles scale), so crossing the map will result in a probable 1 encounter, at 2-in-6 every 2 miles. You won’t see many of these juicy encounters because of this choice, and they bring a lot of personality. I like the density of the wood, but I think an increased encounter rate would behoove the Black Wyrm of Brandonsford.

Honestly the weakest aspect are the two dungeons. The first because I doubt the Goblin Castle required a map in the first place, nor deserved the key (there’s one encounter of note in it, one that leads back to the dragon). The second is an unrelated ancient tomb, which is full of undead celtic warriors in an aesthetic whiplash. The dungeon itself is a half-decent dungeon, full of classic challenges and underground creatures, with no one to talk to and plenty of treasure, and some neat loops to reward exploration. It feels an addition made as a concession to classic play, it’s so jarring and has so little connection with the rest of the module. I say little connection, because there is a single clue pointing to the sword in the final room of the Barrow Mound.

Layout is solid, elegant two column layout, easy to read and to wayfind in. For most of the length of the module, the bullet point choices work, largely because the complexity looks intentionally capped at 3 points of interest per key, but it falls apart terribly in the dragon’s lair and in some rooms in the barrow mound that are by necessity more complex. The art is minimal but well chosen, and the maps are both charming and useful.

Overall, the Black Wyrm of Brandonsford is an excellent module, oozing folksy charm. There’s one misstep in tone, which at the same time is something good enough I would include as a diversion anyway, I’d just like an opportunity for a conversation there. I can see how Chance was given the chance for a more ambitious project after this, but this more constrained project really brings out the strengths in his writing and design, and is well worth bringing to the table.

Idle Cartulary