Feast of the Preserver from Shinobi 27 Games is often billed as a “survival horror adventure”, but that isn’t wholly accurate. It is more a mini-campaign than an adventure, weighing in as a 44 page PDF, there is a lot going on here…and all of it delightfully dark. There are probably 12-16 hours of game play here if players really dig deep and investigate all the opportunities afforded them.
Written for a party of 3-4th level PCs, this is not an adventure for a novice Judge. There are a number of twists and turns written into the storyline and, if run like a traditional dungeon crawl, the air of doom and menace would become lost. This adventure thrives on the helplessness of villagers, struck by an unknown plague, a raid for ransom by bandits, and the mysterious titular religious feast. Keeping solid notes and establishing a timeline to keep things running smoothly is recommended.
Once in though? Oh, what an adventure! Survival horror indeed! The players will need to be at their absolute sharpest to escape the hazards they face. It isn’t that the adventure’s threats are overwhelmingly powerful…but they are quite clever. This is an adventure that calls for brains as much as brawn and those seeking to “murder hobo” their way through it will most likely perish. Fools rush in…to a chipper shredder.
The quality of the material itself is also top notch: the interior art is dark and evocative, the writing reminiscent of the classic Hammer films, and the new material presented can easily be pulled and dropped into an ongoing campaign (who doesn’t want a new “dark” patron). This is an adventure that can be dropped into any ongoing campaign of appropriate level or one that can be hinted at and built towards from campaign start. The tools are provided to make players more than a little leery of what dwells in the darkness.
$9.50 gets you a hard copy and the PDF and it is very much worth it.
Thanks for the kind review!