Mini Review - Broodmother SkyFortress (LotFP)

Look, I have this habit. Its a bad one. I generally pick up all of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess releases even if I know I'd never run them. Fun to read. Total party killers by nature, at least for the past couple of years. Maybe that's too broad a statement, as the party killing aspect is certainly a +James Raggi feature, but its not always as strong when he hires other authors.

Still, unusable or not, LotFP releases are always top notch in presentation, art and readability. Broodmother SkyFortress is no exception to that, except it is an exception. Not only is it playable but its a great resource beyond the adventure presented within. How did that happen? Simple. +Jeff Rients .

Jeff gives us an adventure that might not be world shaking, but is certainly a major campaign event that your players should want to stop. And yes, you need a campaign world, because terror, death and destruction falling upon towns and cities your players have connections to just makes the adventure stronger.

I really like Jeff's approach to Broodmother SkyFortress - tight enough that the storyline is easy to follow, loose enough that you can flex it to the needs of your players / campaign world. That is always a trick, as most adventures are written for a certain campaign world and setting, even if that is never actually said in the adventure.

In a way, its an Adventure Toolkit with a set theme. There is no "this is how this plays out." Jeff asks questions. You provide the answers. No two groups will see this play out the same way.

Can the location withstand attack by giantish bludgeons and hurled boulders? 

Will it be completely smashed or mostly damaged or relatively unscathed?

Charts are the core of this adventure. Heck, there is so much here that you could easily use the charts provided to seed other adventures down the line.

I can see the build up to this adventure take months of real life, weekly gaming, before the players know what's going on and how they can try to stop it. Its like fishing, and with enough play in the fishing line your party should get hooked and hooked well.

As an aside, although written for LotFP WF, Bloodmother SkyFortress is easily run with any of the OSR rulesets in circulation. Play what you want, how you want to. Its what the OSR is all about.

Beyond the adventure, which is the first 90 or so pages, we have 80 or so pages of tables and articles from Jeff's blog, going back years. It really is a "Best of Jeff" selection and is well worth the price of admission on its own and I don't say that lightly. Sure, you could read through Jeff's blog and read through years of excellent posts or just grab Broodmother SkyFortress and have the cream skimmed for you, ready for you to consume, or read.

I'm a backer of this crowdfunded project. Money in, amazing content given in return. I am happy.

On that note, I will leave you with this:

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