Four centuries ago, the dwarves mining the Brackenhoorg struck the mountain’s knotted nexus of lye lines and in the process caused the mine to be flooded with verdigrint ooze. As a consequence, the Dwarves shut the mine down and closed it up before fleeing the mountain. Four weeks ago, fey lord and vintner, Slaveral, steered his planar-travelling villa into the mountain and crashed it into the mines. Four months ago, he accidentally attempted to poison the Unseelie Queen with a cold-iron-laced bottle and after she turned him and his servants into giant bugs, banished him from the realm of the fey. Inside, Lord Slaveral, now an elephant-sized flea, drank deep of the verdigrint ooze and oozed himself into a coma. Yet Lord Slaveral is not without his followers beyond the confines of them mine and now, following a rockslide that exposed the gatehouse to the mine, a band of his cultists has entered the old mine to worship and free their lord. The cultists are not the only ones to learn that the mine is accessible once again. The wizard Calamastes is said to be prepared to pay for a rubbing of an old Dwarven Everstone located in the mine; the mine boss, Dericka Horn, recalls stories of burrowing creatures that worked the Brackenhoorg and wants an intact egg; local Halfling, Kasden Orchenhopper, claims his son went into the gatehouse with his ‘bug-faced’ friends and wants him found; and the Onyx Ducke is said to have donated a Staff of Healing to the Brackenhoorg before the mines flooded. Anyone of these could be reason enough to want to explore Brackenhoorg.
This is the set-up for Outcast Unseelie and the Ooze Between, an ooze overlaid, gunge gooped, slimed slathered scenario from Slime Mind Studio for use with ShadowDark, the retroclone inspired by both the Old School Renaissance and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition from The Arcane Library. Funded via a Kickstarter campaign, it presents a weird, cloyingly sweet miasmic dungeon for a party of Player Characters of First to Third Level. As they enter the former mine, the Player Characters will discover every surface is covered or encrusted with a green slime (not the Green Slime monster of classic Dungeons & Dragons fantasy) that oozes out of cracks, drips from the ceiling, and pools on the floor. Worse, it adheres to metal, blood, and fire, eating into metal and covering it with a patina that leaves weapons severely weakened and armour inflexible, as well as attracting bugs, slugs, and snails that get super drunk on its sweetness. Places are infested with Perish Lillies, a plant with a red flower and blood-sucking thorns that can release a sparkly, psychedelic pollen! Verdigools, ooze-drowned dwarves, lurk here and there; the Goolette, a hulking, slavering lizard dripping green slime stalks the halls; and jolly, murder-living cultists dedicated to Slaveral, seek new victims to sacrifice when not enjoying the steamy shrine/spa where everyone in the mine can enjoy the relaxing pool of warm saliva!
The design of both the scenario and the dungeon is dominated by the colour green with splashes of red here and there. The dungeon itself is very nicely designed. The mine level sits atop the remains of Lord Slaveral’s damaged inter-planar villa and its grounds. Every entry is presented in a clear, easy format with bullet points that enable the Game Master to work straight from the page. Sound plays an important role in the dungeon, such as the occupants of a neighbouring room which can hear loud noises made by the Player Characters, slurping sounds from another room, and so on. There is a dynamic feel to the dungeon, at least in terms of its physicality. There are some fantastic locations such as a tunnel which is blocked with scarlet lilies that have blood-sucking thorns and if cleared will regrow if it has a source of blood—and there happens to be the corpse of cultist entangled in its roots; an ‘Ooze Cascade’, an emerald waterfall of verdigrint ooze that has been frozen by a fireball-slinging cultist whose body is encased in the waterfall(!); and the ‘Steamy Shrine’ filled with green steam created from a mix of verdigrint ooze aerated by a spit spewing mask worn by a statue and due to a widely-known curse that turns the tongue into a grub that east everything, is treated as neutral ground. In general, the mines level is more interesting than that of Lord Slaveral’s shunted villa.
There can be no doubt that Outcast Unseelie and the Ooze Between is delightfully foul, fetid, and fuggy in its atmosphere and ambiance, but the scenario does not quite work in terms of storytelling. To begin with, the hooks are underwritten, and apart from the missing Halfling, Meck, do not personalise the reasons why the Player Characters would want to delve very far in the Brackenhoorg. Of course, the Brackenhoorg has only recently opened up, so chronologically, it might be challenging to develop interesting hooks, but once the Player Characters are in the mine, the scenario does not go out of its way to pull them in. Relying upon a combination of player and character curiosity is not enough. The environment itself is off-putting, the green verdigrint ooze encrusting everything and making equipment harder to use, impeding their progress and given that Outcast Unseelie and the Ooze Between is meant to be a puzzle dungeon, the puzzle aspects of the dungeon are really pushed into the background, as are, to a lesser effect, the Fey aspects of the dungeon. Further, it is not easy to bring the aims of the NPCs into play in the dungeon. Which is disappointing given that they are behind what has happened so far in the mine. There is a timeline of events that will happen if the Player Characters do nothing, but these have very little effect upon the mine as a whole. What it more needed is a stronger idea of the events that will happen and what the NPCs will do if the Player Characters actually do something. For example, what if the cultists and their leader fail in their plan to sacrifice another NPC? The major NPCs are presented in an accessible format, which does include motivations, but it is simply not enough.
Physically, Outcast Unseelie and the Ooze Between is superbly presented. The layout, the artwork, and the cartography are excellent, contributing to so much of the atmosphere of the scenario.
Marvellously mucculent and oozily original, Outcast Unseelie and the Ooze Between is a genuinely atmospheric and different dungeon. It should be, could be, a great dungeon, but ultimately, the Game Master needs to develop its plot and the aims of the NPCs to make them easier and more obvious for the players and their characters to engage with them. Do that and Outcast Unseelie and the Ooze Between has the chance to really shine with an oily sheen as it deserves and be a truly memorable adventure.
