Friday Fantasy: Shadowbrook Manor

If Idol of the Orcs, the first official scenario to be published by Goblinoid Games for use with its retroclone, Labyrinth Lord, was disappointing and familiar in both its set-up and execution, then the good news is that the second adventure is a huge improvement. Marked ‘Module 2’, Shadowbrook Manor is another low level adventure, designed for characters of between First and Third Levels, but that does not mean that it is not without its problems. The set-up is simple enough. The Archamage Tazimack the Red was a mighty champion of Law, renowned for his exploits across the realm and beyond, but in old age—just like every other NPC wizard—he became obsessed with thwarting death. Using elixirs, sorceries, and more he managed to stave off death’s dark touch, but finally it claimed him, so leaving behind a legend, a mystery, and a lair. That lair is Shadowbrook Manor. It is set-up straight out of E. Gary Gygax’s 1978 S1, Tomb of Horrors and feels all a bit drearily familiar.

The player characters are introduced to Shadowbrook Manor in one of several fashions—by simple luck, by waking up in its grounds with no memory of how they got there, by being sent there to recover an ancient tome, or as beneficiaries of the late Tazimack’s will. All options are simple enough, but with the latter two, the Labyrinth Lord will probably need to add rumours and develop its surrounds in order to flesh the adventure out a bit more just as she may need to create stronger hooks should she want to fit the scenario into her campaign. Unless of course, she is running the adventure en media res. What the player characters find themselves in is a garden filled with demonic topiary, which are actually the least weird thing in the grounds of the house. Although there are odd things to be found in the garden, the Shadowbrook Manor’s centrepiece is of course, the house itself.

The house in Shadowbrook Manor consists of sixteen locations on the ground floor—pleasingly referred to as the ground floor rather than the first floor—and seventeen locations on the second floor—oddly and consistently referred to as the second floor, plus a cellar and an attic. The design is a classic American great house, replete with Widow’s Walk, so it is large, open, airy, and very much the Victorian ideal rather than a medieval house. Every room is detailed and every room is clean and mostly in working order as if this were not some abandoned country home. There is good reason for this in that whilst the master of the house may be long dead, his staff are not—well, technically they are, but you get what I mean—and so they are still seeing to the upkeep of the house. The lived in feeling of the house is evidenced by the wealth of detail given to every room and a large number of the rooms still being occupied and many of them containing magical items. In fact, there are lots of magical items to be found in the adventure, from simple potions and things that work like potions such as a can labelled ‘Whupass’ containing spinach-like material which works like a Potion of Superheroism to Oil of O’Lay which takes years off a character when applied and Eleanor, a fantastic sword who also happens to be jealous, insecure, vain, and insecure—and they are the least of her personality quirks. (It should be noted that the scenario includes some terrible puns, but this is a roleplaying scenario, so they should be par for the course.) Although many of the items found are single use only, there are a lot of them.

There are some brilliant touches to the adventure. Such as Banshee working in the library and a withdrawing room which does exactly that. There is depth and detail to some of the puzzles, so the players will need to be inventive in what their player characters can do. Yet, there are are also very deadly encounters which seem somewhat out of place given the Level of characters for which the scenario is written. From the start, it includes a nasty door trap that could turn everyone blind if they do not mind their manners, the aforementioned banshee in the library, a potential demon in the summoning room, and more, but the most dangerous has to be the soul of a necromancer, at least six Levels higher than any of the player characters, stuck in a cookie jar. Should he possess any of the player characters, then several deaths are likely to occur. 

Shadowbrook Manor is not a long book at a mere sixteen pages and the actual description of the house and the maps just about run to half of that. The rest is given over to a couple of pages or so’s worth of new monsters and new magical items. Of the former, the Grue is an odd inclusion since it does not appear in the scenario, whilst the latter are a good mix of one use items or powerful items each with a downside.

Physically Shadowbrook Manor is a slim, black and white booklet. It is cleanly presented, the cartography is clear, and what little artwork there is, is okay. That said, the picture of the nude demon feels a little out of place. It might be argued that the one issue with the scenario is that it is really a little too tough for characters of First to Third Level and that perhaps it could be upgraded to mid-Level characters. Another issue is that none of the mundane items are priced and for a dungeon with a degree of naturalism as this, it feels as if there should be more valuables, more jewelry, and so on. There are also very few NPCs for the Labyrinth Lord to handle, so this is primarily an adventure hose focus is on exploration and examination rather than on roleplaying.

Shadowbrook Manor is a not a deathtrap dungeon, so much as a funhouse dungeon, in which the player characters are allowed to wander round and pick and poke at whatever they want; and certainly, there is plenty for them to pick and poke at in the house. As weird as the ‘dungeon’ is, with its undead staff and its Banshee in the library, there is a delightful naturalism to the scenario, both in the fact that they are going about their jobs and working to keep the mansion a home and in that every room is described in detail. Although not perfect and perhaps just too deadly and too generous, Shadowbrook Manor is an impressive dungeon in terms of its feel and tone.