I’ve wanted to dig into more Midnight: Legacy of Darkness adventure content for a while. The setting is so stylized, and has such clearly communicated grim tones, I want to know how you keep the natural oppressiveness of the setting, while still encouraging the PCs to struggle against the darkness, and to give them victories that don’t undermine the conceits of the setting.
Until I have time to dive into the larger adventure Crown of Shadow, I’m going to look at a smaller offering, A Single Spark. This started as a convention scenario and has been developed to serve as a starting adventure for the setting. The pregenerated characters are all 2nd level, but the adventure itself says that you can start at 1st level, advancing the PCs to 2nd level after the first act.
This is going to be a first impression article because . . . well, it’s free. I can’t really calibrate the potential value of a purchase you don’t have to make. Now that we’ve got all of that established, let’s dive in.
Disclaimer
This is a free adventure. While I’ve read 3rd edition Midnight material, as well as reviewing the 5e SRD version of the campaign setting, I’ve never played or run in the setting. While I haven’t had on hand experience with the setting, I do have a lot of experience with D&D 5e, both as a player and a DM.
A Single Spark
Expansion Design and Development Matthew Broberg-Moffitt and Sam Gregor-StewartProofreading Tim FlandersRPG Manager Sam Gregor-StewartGraphic Design Paco DanaArt Director Antonio MaínezCover Art Antonio MaínezInterior Art Yunir Bagautdinov, Javier Charro, Paco Dana, Antonio Maínez, Adrián Prado, Unreal Studio, Bram Willemot, and Ting XuDevelopment Managers Curro Marín and Luis E. SánchezEditorial Manager CrocStudio Coordinator Stéphane BogardHead of Studio Michael Croitoriu
Care Package
The adventure itself is a 28-page PDF. That includes a title page, five pages of NPC stat blocks, and an OGL statement. In addition to the adventure, the bundle of game material includes three battle maps that you could use on a VTT, as well as six pregenerated player characters with two pages of information. The pregens include the following characters:
Human Paladin
Human Rogue
Gnome Sorcerer
Halfling Ranger
Orc Fighter
Elf Fighter
Setting Reminder
If you haven’t encountered the Midnight setting before, and you are of a mind to do some research, I have a review up on Gnome Stew looking at the 5e SRD version. The quick version? What if Sauron won the War of the Ring and cut the world off from the other Ainur. Or in D&D terms, the only god left in the world is the God of Evil.
The only healing magic in the setting comes from the “primal” classes, or from bards. There are no clerics, warlocks, or monks in the setting, and the player character species are limited to humans, halflings, elves, dwarves, gnomes, and orcs. Legates, the clerics of Izrador, the God of Evil, hunt down spellcasters. It’s illegal to read or write, and only the forces of Izrador can bear arms. There are few lands that aren’t under the thumb of the Night Kings, the most powerful servants of Izrador.
The Adventure at Hand
There are dark whispers of spoilers, drifting on the corrupted wind. If you’re planning on playing in this adventure, or want to be surprised, run, run for all you are worth to escape the veil before it closes!
Because this is a convention scenario that is meant to quickly introduce the tone and themes of the setting, this one jumps right into the fire. The PCs were in the village of Karez when the villagers were punished for harboring rebels and failing to properly tithe. We start with everyone in a caravan, taking the survivors of Karez (including the PCs) to be sold into slavery, or executed (rebels are too dangerous to be left alive).
The wagon hauling the PCs is attacked by “bandits,” who kill the troops of the local Legate. This gives the PCs the opportunity to escape. If they draw too much attention to themselves, they must deal with some of the troopers, but otherwise, the PCs will find the troops slaughtered by the creatures that raided the caravan. It turns out that the attackers are former bandits who died and are trapped on the mortal plane as Fell. The Fell are undead that temporarily lose their bloodlust after they have fed.
The PCs have the opportunity to talk to the Fell to get more information, specifically about the bandit leader to whom the Fell reported when they were still alive. The Fell doesn’t want to kill the PCs right after it has fed, but if they talk to it too long, it will warn them that it’s starting to get hungry again, and they can’t vouch for the PCs safety.
The cart carrying the villagers has moved on, and if the PCs want to save the innocents from their fate, they will need to track down the remaining wagon and free the villagers. There are a lot of troops, which means it may be very unwise for the PCs to mount the attack on their own.
Pursuit and Decisions
The next section of the adventure will depend on where the PCs want to go. In addition to the bandits, the PCs may remember that there are also freedom fighters in the area (the rebels that they have been accused of being in league with). They might decide to go to either the rebels or the bandits. While the PCs are traveling to one location or the other, they will need to avoid or defeat a band of goblin trackers trying to hunt them down.
If the PCs don’t know about the bandits because they didn’t talk to the Fell, when they track down the rebels, the rebels will let the PCs know about the bandits. The rebels will also let the PCs know about another potential mission, their plan to track infiltrate a town and kill the legate of this region.
The bandit leader is sympathetic to arguments about freeing the villagers. It’s possible to convince the rebels to abandon their plans for the assassination to aid with the effort to free the villagers. One way or the other, the PCs will need to decide what task they want to accomplish, and what faction they are attempting to convince to help them. If they convince the bandit leader to help them, her second in command quits for fear of calling down the forces of Izrador upon all of them.
Consequences
The adventure doesn’t provide for what happens if the PCs attempt to save the villagers without recruiting either faction, other than to note that it should be an extremely difficult task for them to accomplish. The GM will need to determine what that opposition looks like, in part because the actual number of troops is kept abstract, since the allies they bring with them are meant to deal with the bulk of the soldiers.
If the PCs go after the villagers, they will need to face various waves of troops, and how those troops are affected by the defenses the PCs set up. For example, if they block off part of the bridge, the troops have a harder time moving into the camp en masse. They can attempt to burn down the bridge, but it’s wet and resistant to attempts to do so, meaning it will take a little effort. Much of this section of the adventure is about planning an ambush and setting up defenses.
Unfortunately, the PCs can’t accomplish both objectives. The bandit’s second in command sells out the PCs to the legate that the rebels were planning on assassinating, meaning he’s no longer vulnerable and the PCs will need to get a move on to avoid the legate’s forces.
If the PCs instead go after the legate, they need to infiltrate his headquarters. They can attempt to sneak in, or batter down the front door, and the adventure addresses both. Like the caravan with the villagers, if the PCs have no allies, it’s assumed there are substantially more troops between them and the legate. Otherwise, their allies are assumed to be drawing off significant numbers of troops that would otherwise stand in the PCs way.
After sneaking through or slashing through the troops in the legate’s tower, they can finally face him, interrupting him in prayer at his altar to Izrador. If the PCs kill the legate, the rebels and bandits loot the location, and gain an abundance of supplies and weapons. They have also damaged Izrador’s forces in this region, giving everyone some breathing room, and time to fortify the settlements. However, if the PCs went this route, the bandit’s second in command sold them out to the troops headed to the slavers, warning them to leave quickly, and removing the PCs option to save the villagers.
Accountability
I like a lot about this adventure, but there are a few open-ended items that don’t quite line up for me. I wish there was either a consequence for not recruiting both groups before they set off on whatever mission they choose, or that it’s just assumed that the bandits will only go on the mission to save the villagers, and the rebels will only go on the mission to assassinate the legate, although in that case, it removes the PCs’ ability to try and negotiate for more allies.
There are also some assumptions that the adventure makes, after it introduces the possibility that those assumptions may not come to pass. For example, the way the adventure communicates that the PCs can only accomplish one objective is by having the bandit leader’s second sell them out. However, if they don’t recruit the bandits, there is no reason for him to desert or sell anyone out.
I think it’s perfectly reasonable to “gate” the knowledge of the bandits behind the decision to talk to the Fell, but if that’s case, instead of making the PCs make an Intelligence (History) check to know about the rebels, they should just start off knowing that they are a faction in the region.
Final Thoughts
I really wanted to see how this adventure was framed considering the setting’s assumptions. I think there are several things this adventure does well to reinforce the idea that the PCs are heroes fighting a massively uphill battle, while still giving them some feeling of accomplishment.
Communicating with the Fell reinforces the tragedy of the undead in the setting, by reminding the PCs that something of the human they were remains. Rather than presenting the PCs with an impossible task to reinforce how desperate their situation is, making them choose between two different missions, and reinforcing that they can’t accomplish everything they want to accomplish, is along the lines of what I was hoping to see. It creates stakes without making it too frustrating for the PCs to feel like their characters matter.
I know this is a free adventure converted from a convention scenario, but I would have loved to have seen what it might have meant to recruit one faction, and not the other, in a more concrete manner. While I would have liked a little more in the way of layering difficulty and exploring what it means to have one ally over another, I still think this has helped to display what adventures should look like in the setting. Smaller successes, hard choices, enough progress to keep the heroes from feeling helpless or ineffective. This makes me very interested to see how Crown of Shadow unfolds.
The adventure, on its own, leans heavily on orcs and goblins as the henchmen of evil forces, and while the campaign setting book does a decent job of explaining how there are many orcs attempting to break away from their conscription, and that they are no more prone to evil than any other species, other than having a pregenerated orc PC, this setting detail isn’t communicated in the adventure.
Much like Izrador’s servants, I am attempting to leach the energy from your purchases with the following affiliate links. I’ll pull part of the purchase into my dark mirror, ruling over my purchases for a thousand years.