Friday Fantasy: Hideous Daylight

‘Hollyhock’ is a large walled garden, some two-and-a-half miles across, which lies within the lands of Duke Omer. It contains a forests, a lake, a hedge maze and a famous rose garden. In fact, so famous, the king himself enjoys an annual visit to Hollyhock for a birthday hunting retreat. Now such a visit is unlikely, for the Sun has not set upon the garden in months. It languishes under a hazy late-afternoon sun that has had a deleterious effect upon the flora and fauna contained within its walls. The plants have begun to dry out now than the garden no longer has any rainfall, whilst the constant daylight appears to have maddened the animals found within, driven to aggression and odd behaviour without the regular diurnal cycle. Duke Omer has already sent several of knights inside Hollyhock and he has grown increasingly concerned. In a desperate bid to undo the curse which has beset Hollyhock, he has put out a bounty that he hopes will persuade a band of enterprising sell-swords to undertake the mission. Some already have, but like the knights before them, have no returned. There are rumours that spending a day in the garden will send a man mad, a giant rat—never seen before—lurks inside already having killed two knights, and Duke Omer blames Fabien, the king’s magician, who went missing at about the time that the Sun never set, for the whole situation, this ‘Hideous Daylight’.

Hideous Daylight is a scenario published by Swordlords Publishingfor use with Old School Essentials, Necrotic Gnome’s interpretation and redesign of the 1981 revision of Basic Dungeons & Dragons by Tom Moldvay and its accompanying Expert Set by Dave Cook and Steven M. Marsh. (The PDF also includes a version for use with Cairn.) It is designed to be played using First to Third Level Player Characters and is a mini-hexcrawl that can be run on its own or slotted into a Game Master’s campaign with some adjustment here and there. The ‘Hollyhock’ consists of some nineteen hexes, each of which contains something and each of which takes between ten and twenty minutes to cross, but longer to explore, of course. Certain hexes have specific locations with expanded detail, two of them being mini-dungeons, which thus require further exploration. Any players, let alone their characters, expecting to find a bucolic idyll will be soundly disappointed. There are piles of rotting corpses, deer are seen grazing peacefully on the dead, a knight dutifully performing his assigned task despite being dead (though not evil), gazebo containing fire, a murder of possessive crows, an even more possessive mermaid, and a single, circular patch shade exists in one location, never moving and with no cause to be seen. There is the constant sense of a maintained and often manicured garden having gone to seed, such as the tangled rose gardens or the bird bath having become a repository for the crows’ treasures. Then there are signs of strangeness, of oddities that should not be there at all such as rips in reality and overly friendly ‘aliens’ with a deconstructive desire to understand how everything works and the hands to support that. As well as these, the Player Characters will begin uncovering clues as to what is going on, leading them to explore the adventure’s mini-dungeons.

Hideous Daylight has two dungeons, both quite small, but nicely detailed. These consist of a hedge maze, which the scenario does not make too big a feature of getting lost in, and a network of caverns under a well. Here, along with some very bored shadow demons, the Player Characters will discover the real threat to the hollyhock, although dealing with it is challenging. The scenario suggests multiple ways in which it can end and the possible consequences for each of them, though not all of them are beneficial to the Player Characters or the surrounding region. This also means that there room for the Game Master to write a sequel or two, and that is in addition to the possibility of the dungeon under the well being expanded.

Oddly, there is decidedly pointed advice for the Game Master at the start of the game. At the second location, the author advises that whilst the Game Master roll the dice and refer to the random encounter table, she should instead just send the giant rat barrelling towards the Player Characters. The intention is to get the scenario going with some action and to get the Player Characters to react, especially in the face of as fearsome a creature as the giant rat proves to be. It feels out of place with the rest of the scenario, but it is giving the Game Master the option. Effectively, though, the Game Master can beyond this and use ‘Scampers’ as he is called, to prod and push the Player Characters visit particular locations.

Physically, Hideous Daylight is decently presented. The illustration are good and the maps are clear, although the map of the Hollyhock is more pictorial than simply being numbered. This does make it slightly difficult to work out what is what on the map in some cases. A legend would have helped.

Hideous Daylight is a busy little affair. It should provide a two or three sessions’ worth of as the Player Characters attempt to bring darkness to the Hollyhock. It offers a challenging mix of exploration, investigation, and combat in a mini-mystery hexcrawl.