The debut adventure of Scott Carter Games, The Siege of Ebonfall, shows a lot of ambition and talent. The adventure concerns a small village on the edge of a swamp, Ebonfall, which comes under attack from a horde of humanoids. The adventure presumes the player characters are there to defend it, which – as motivations go – works just fine for me. Adventurers travelling to the village may encounter monsters or men that can alert them to the danger the village is in, but those encounters are not necessary for the adventure to work.
The meat of the adventure consists of three waves of attackers that the PCs must defeat if they can even hope to defend the village, each more dangerous than the last. Interestingly, the outcome of each wave is not entirely determined by the success of the PCs: if they fail, their position falls and they must retreat, but if they succeed, a roll on a random table may still have that part of the village overcome by the rest of the attackers. I’m uncertain as to how this would work in play, but I appreciate the different approach to the problem.
The encounters can be tough, and there’s one that includes a blinded hill giant that I applaud for its ingenuity, although it has the potential to be entirely too overwhelming for 2nd and 3rd level characters!
Those looking for a detailed town will be disappointed; no NPCs are described and it is only detailed in the broadest strokes. The attention is on the attackers, not the defenders.
The chief problem with the adventure is that it is very short: it’s really just the three encounters, although there is the possibility of one or two more. The adventure presents a new monster, a variant bugbear, and teases the potential of future adventures with a description of the god of the invaders, Shub. There are a few editing mistakes, but on the whole it’s well written.
The adventure is written as the first part of a series, but it stands well enough on its own. Not a bad first effort, and I hope to see more adventures from Scott Carter Games in the future.